


Dead Hearts

by thehistorygeek



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Rating May Change, Reincarnation, Side pairings may show up, Slow Build, Takes place over several years, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehistorygeek/pseuds/thehistorygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin dreams of strange things: giant walls that tower fifty metres into the sky, protecting the cities inside from huge, man-eating creatures, and the people that fight them, flying through the air with wires and swords. They wake him up screaming in the middle of the night, reaching for someone who isn't there. He brushes them off as simple nightmares for the longest time, until one day he realizes that they're so, so much more complicated than that. And then everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Did you see the closing window?_

_Did you hear the slamming door?_

_They moved forward, my heart died_

_They moved forward, my heart died_

- _Dead Hearts_ , Stars

 

* * *

 

Armin stood quietly with the airline employee, one small hand gripping the handle of his suitcase and the other on the strap of his backpack. The airport was loud, and people bustled around him, though none of them seemed to be Armin’s grandfather. He almost didn’t want him to arrive, because maybe, if he didn’t show up, Armin would be sent back to England and it would be revealed that everything was a big misunderstanding and he’d be given back to his parents.

But that would never happen. There’d been too much evidence incriminating them; too much evidence showing how terrible they were at looking after Armin. Still, he wanted nothing more than for this strange nightmare to end and for him to go back to the life he knew—to everything that was familiar.

He’d been taken away from his parents two months ago. He remembered the police arriving late at night—their loud pounding on the front door had woken Armin up. The police had arrested his parents and taken Armin to a big building where he’d been put in a room with an old couch and some toys for hours and hours while a bunch of people tried finding any of his relatives to take him in.

But no one had wanted to take him; some of them hadn’t even known of his existence beforehand. So Armin was put into the foster system for a week before an aunt decided to take him in, though she insisted it was only temporarily. Armin had hated being with her; she didn’t have any kids his age, and she had a mean cat that spent the whole time hissing and scratching at him.

Eventually, his aunt got in contact with Armin’s paternal grandfather, who lived in America. He hadn’t heard about his son’s arrest until then, and hadn’t seen him since before Armin was born. Still, he decided that he’d take the small boy in, and even payed for Armin’s passport, Visa, and plane ticket. Armin had climbed aboard the plane early the previous morning, put under the care of an airline employee, the same one who stood with him now.

He was absolutely exhausted—he’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and missed his bed and his house and even his parents. He’d been allowed to bring whatever he could fit into his backpack and suitcase, which consisted mostly of clothes, his favourite books, and his ratty old teddy bear. None of it even smelled like his old house anymore; his aunt had washed everything the minute he’d stepped into her house, saying it all stank to high heaven.

Suddenly, the airline employee—whose name was Madeline—was tapping Armin’s shoulder and pointing to an old man who was making his way through the crowd, a wide smile on his face. Armin froze, and watched as the man stopped and kneeled in front of him. He had a scruffy, graying beard and warm brown eyes, with weathered skin that was etched with wrinkles.

“Hello, Armin,” he said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

 

* * *

 

Armin didn’t say anything as he drove to his new house with his grandfather. He sat quietly in the backseat, staring out the window and watching the buildings zoom by. His grandfather lived in a peaceful, quiet neighbourhood with identical, spaced-out houses and trimmed green lawns. It was nothing like where Armin had lived before, where it was dangerous to be out past dark.

Here, kids played in the streets. Some of them waved to Armin’s grandfather as he drove past, and he smiled and waved back. A woman pushed a baby along in a stroller, and a boy walked his dog. It was like one of the neighbourhoods Armin saw on TV—friendly and clean and perfect.

His grandfather’s house was just like all the others, with a brown shingled roof and pale yellow siding. Just looking at it Armin could tell it was bigger than his old house. His grandfather parked the car in the driveway and got out, opening Armin’s door for him. The small boy climbed out, clutching his backpack and glancing around. He could hear the kids playing down the street now, and they talked loudly and laughed with each other.

“Give me the ball!”

Armin watched as a boy with messy brown hair chased a girl with dirt all over herself and a basketball in her hands around the driveway of a house a few doors down. A girl with straight black hair pushed back by a flowery headband sat on the ground giggling at them, a piece of chalk in her hands. Armin couldn’t see what she had been drawing, but it looked colourful and spanned most of the driveway.

He felt a sudden pang when the boy stopped chasing the girl and looked up at him. He couldn’t see him too well from where he was standing, but everything about his face seemed familiar. Armin wasn’t sure how, though, as he’d never see the boy in his life. He quickly turned his head away when the boy started smiling at him, looking towards his grandfather.

“That’s Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha,” the man explained, putting a hand on Armin’s shoulder. “They all live on this street. I’m sure you’ll become good friends with them.”

Armin nodded quietly, and let his grandfather lead him inside. He looked back as he walked through the door, seeing the boy pointing at him with a wide grin on his face and talking excitedly to his friends.

 

* * *

 

The house was huge, just as Armin thought it would be. It had a nice, homely feel to it and smelled like old people and something that Armin couldn’t place. There were pictures everywhere, hung up on the walls and on tables and shelves. Armin didn’t recognize most of the people in them, except for one that he was pretty sure was of his father when he was younger.

“That’s your daddy,” his grandfather said, smiling warmly at the small boy. When Armin didn’t say anything, he knelt down beside him, grabbing his hand. “I know this is a lot to take in, Armin. And I know it’ll take a while for you to get used to it all. I’m sorry this had to happen to you. But everything will be okay.”

Suddenly, tears were welling up in Armin’s eyes, and for the first time in two months he didn’t try to hold them back.

 

* * *

 

Later that evening, Armin sat on his new bed in his old pyjamas looking out the window. The stars were just starting to come out, and Armin was glad to realize they looked just like the stars in England. He used to spend hours staring up at the dark sky when he couldn’t sleep, and it had become a comforting routine for him.

However, he was distracted from his stargazing when a light was suddenly turned on in the house next door. Looking over at it, he saw the boy from earlier, Eren, sitting on a bed in almost the exact same position as Armin’s, smiling widely as his parents kissed him goodnight. Glancing down at the teddy bear he was gripping in his hands, Armin sniffed slightly and blinked away the tears in his eyes before crawling beneath the blankets and burying his face in his pillow.

* * *

 

The next day, his grandfather took Armin to visit their neighbours, the Jaegers. The door was answered by a woman with straight, tied-back brown hair who smiled brightly when she saw Armin, quickly inviting them in.

“Hello, there,” she greeted, leaning down and giving his hand a little shake. Armin noticed that she had a strange accent, though it wasn’t American or one he recognized. “I’m Carla. You must be Armin. Your grandfather’s told me quite a bit about you!”

He nodded shyly, keeping a tight grip on his grandfather’s hand. He’d grown attached to the old man in the twenty-four hours that he’s known him—he was one of the first people the boy had ever met that hadn’t brushed him off or ignored him.

“How old are you, Armin?” Carla asked.

“Five,” Armin said quietly.

Carla’s smile grew wider. “I have a son who’s about your age,” she said. “Why don’t we go into the living room and you can meet him?”

Armin nodded, and Carla led them to the living room. He sat close to his grandfather on the couch, still refusing to let go of his hand.

“Eren!” Carla called, walking towards the staircase. “Come here, please!”

“ _Warum_?” a small voice answered; Armin strained to hear and understand what he was saying, but quickly realized he wasn’t speaking English. He didn’t know what language it was, though he figured it was the reason why Carla had such a funny accent.

“We have guests!” Carla replied. “Come on, get down here!”

There was the sound of footsteps upstairs, and then a little boy was hurrying down the stairs, grinning at Armin and his grandfather. It was the same boy Armin had seen both times yesterday, but for the first time he could see him clearly. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of recognition and familiarity, more so than when he’d seen him playing across the street, as if he was seeing an old close friend for the first time in years.

But then he remembered. It was almost like a memory he’d forgotten up until then had suddenly resurfaced. He was being shoved down onto a worn cobblestone street and, bringing his arms up around his face, he realized that the clothes he was wearing weren’t his, and looked like they belonged to another time period completely. The boys crowding around him were all wearing the same type of clothing and all the buildings looked almost medieval. However, in the memory, none of that seemed strange to him.

He remembered a sharp pain in his side, and feeling angry. He couldn’t remember why though. Then he saw Eren running towards him out of the corner of his eye, and relief flooded him. The other boy looked angry, and was yelling at the kids attacking his friend, but Armin couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Before anything else could happen, though, he was back on the couch beside his grandfather, and Eren was smiling expectantly at him. Everything surrounding the strange memory was nonexistent; where were they? Why were they dressed like that? Who were those boys attacking him? All he knew was that it was something that had definitely never happened to him, yet he remembered it clear as day.

Noticing Armin’s baffled expression, Eren repeated the question he’d asked that he hadn’t heard. “I asked what your name was.” He had the same strange accent as his mother; Armin still couldn’t figure out where it was from, though it had stopped bugging him as much.

“Oh. I’m Armin.” he said, blinking and looking around the living room. It was still the same as it had been before, with pictures hung on the walls and decorations placed every here and there. He hadn’t been transported to some strange, far-off land.

“Armin? That’s a funny name,” Eren said. Armin shrugged and looked down at the ground.

“Not that that’s a bad thing,” he corrected quickly, obviously thinking he had hurt Armin’s feelings. “I like it.”

When Armin didn’t say anything, Eren grabbed his hand and pulled him up onto his feet. “Do you wanna play with me?” he asked. “I have _tons_ of cool toys. Come on!”

He didn’t wait for a response before dragging the smaller boy upstairs, saying how happy he was that there was another boy in the neighbourhood. Armin felt like he’d been pulled around by this fiery, brown-haired boy hundreds of times before, and for the first time in months something seemed familiar.

 

* * *

 

Armin quickly fell into the routine of his grandfather’s life. Because it was summer, there was no school, which meant he spent most of his time running around the neighbourhood with Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha. He had never had many friends in England; there had been no other kids on his street, and he had mostly sat and read by himself at school.

He really enjoyed the company of his three new friends, however. As soon as Eren had introduced him to Mikasa and Sasha, he’d had the same odd feeling that he already knew them. Mikasa was a cheerful, albeit quiet, girl who shared his love of reading, though the first time he saw her smile it had seemed a bit out of place to him, though he didn’t know why. He tried not to dwell on it too much, though. Sasha was loud and boisterous, and was always cracking jokes. She also loved to eat, and when she met Armin the first thing she’d told him was that he was too skinny, almost like a worried mother. He found out a few days after his arrival that the Jaegers were originally from Germany, and that Eren had actually been born there, which explained their accents.

Armin was much happier than he thought he would be. He found some of the things Americans did a little strange, but he wasn’t miserable. Nothing like what happened in Eren’s living room happened again, either, though he thought about it all the time. No matter how much he thought about it, however, he couldn’t figure it out.

About a week after he arrived, his grandfather took him shopping at the local mall. It was much bigger than any mall Armin had ever been to, something that was becoming a trend: everything was bigger here. It was a Tuesday so it wasn’t too crowded, and Armin was allowed to get a book.

He was looking forward to reading it when they got home, but as the pulled onto the street he saw several cars parked around his grandfather’s house. Clutching tightly at the book in his hands, he waited until he and his grandfather were standing at the door to ask what was going on.

“Everyone thought it might be nice to have a little surprise party for you,” he explained, and Armin froze. “To welcome you here.”

The only parties he knew were ones with lots of people and loud music that lasted well into the early morning. The type his parents liked to throw. So when his grandfather led him through the door and he saw all the people gathered in the kitchen and living room, the last thing he wanted to do was go talk to them.

But that’s what he was expected to do. Slowly, he walked to where everyone could see him and stood there as they crowded around him, talking happily as he tried to smile but didn’t really succeed. Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha managed to shove their way through the crowd so that they were standing right in front of Armin, all smiling widely.

“Hi, Armin!” Eren greeted happily. Mikasa waved at him, and Sasha grinned through her mouthful of food.

“Hi,” Armin said quietly, his voice barely audible above the chatter of the people who had started to disperse.

“What’s that?” Mikasa asked, looking at the book in Armin’s hands. He held it up for them to see, and Eren wrinkled his nose at it.

“Books are boring,” he said. “Let’s play something!”

Sasha nodded in agreement, though Mikasa shot him a rather dirty look for his comment about books being boring. Armin told them he just had to put his book away, and scurried off to his room. Shutting the door behind him, he sank to the ground with his hands over his ears. He could still hear everyone talking and laughing, and he hated it. He hated parties.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up and put the book on his dresser. Then he carefully took the blanket from the end of his bed and a pillow and opened his closet door. He knew he’d told Eren and Mikasa and Sasha that he’d be right back, but he did not to go out there again. Shuffling a few things around, the small boy wrapped the blanket around himself and crouched down in the corner of his closet, struggling a bit to close the door before actually managing to do it.

When he was much younger, he would simply cry whenever his parents threw parties. He would sit in his room and cry and cry until his mother came in and tried to get him to shut up. But she would be rough with him like she always was when she drank, so he learned not to cry. Even when he fell and hurt himself and his mother hadn’t had a drink in a while he never cried.

Instead he hid in his closet. When his parents had parties or they drank or the foul stench that seemed to cling to everything in their house grew stronger he would hide in his closet with his blanket and pillow and he’d try to block the world out.

He once read about how animals had different defense mechanisms to protect themselves; some were poisonous and some could blend into their surroundings and some had long sharp claws they could use to fight.

Armin’s defense mechanism was hiding.

 

* * *

 

It took a while for people to realize Armin was missing. Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha had wandered off while waiting for him to come back, figuring he’d find them eventually, considering he did live there. But after about ten minutes, with no sign of the blond-haired boy, Eren decided to go looking for him.

A scan of the main level proved fruitless, and he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to go upstairs, so he sought out Armin’s grandfather.

“Mr. Arlert!” he cried, finding the old man talking to Mikasa’s father. “Have you seen Armin? I can’t find him anywhere.”

“What? Really?” Armin’s grandfather asked, looking around the room. “I’m not too sure where he is, actually… Why don’t you check his room? It’s upstairs, second one on the right.”

“Thank you!” Eren said, before running off and up the stairs. He easily found Armin’s room, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. “Armin!” he called, walking around the room and checking under the bed. “Armin, where are you?”

He was just about to leave when he heard a small sound coming from the closet, like someone sniffing. Frowning, he went over and opened the door to find Armin huddled in the corner, wrapped in a blanket with a pillow over his head. He looked like he was trying not to cry, and seemed shocked when he saw Eren standing in front of him.

“Armin?” Eren kneeled down, looking at his friend with concern. “Armin, what are you doing in the closet?”

Armin swiped his hand across his eyes and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I didn’t want to go back out there…” he said quietly.

Eren looked confused. “Why?” he asked. “Mikasa and Sasha are waiting for us. Come on!”

Armin shook his head at Eren’s outstretched hand, shrinking back further into the closet. “I don’t wanna go back out there,” he said. “I… I don’t like parties.”

Eren seemed to be even more confused by this statement. “What!” he cried, throwing his hands into the air. “How can you not like parties? They’re the best!”

“I just don’t like them,” Armin repeated, glancing down at the ground.

“That’s no reason to cry though,” Eren said, crouching down so he could see Armin’s face.

The blond blushed at Eren’s statement, before scowling at him. “I was not crying,” he snapped, bringing the blanket up around his face.

“You were too,” Eren retorted. “I’m not stupid, Armin. Now come on. You can’t hide in here until the party is over.”

Armin realized that Eren was probably right, but that didn’t make him want to leave any more. He shook his head, flinching as a loud burst of laughter came from downstairs. Eren furrowed his eyebrows at him, before crawling into the closet and sitting down beside the smaller boy.

“Eren?” Armin asked, peeking out from under the blanket.

“I’m not gonna leave you here alone!” Eren said, almost as if Armin was stupid for not understanding that. “Friends don’t let their friends sit in closets alone. And if you don’t wanna go out then I have to sit here with you.”

“Eren, you really do—,”

“Don’t care,” Eren cut him off, prying part of the blanket from Armin’s hands and wrapping it around himself. “Mikasa and Sasha can just play by themselves.”

Armin wanted to protest further, but it was nice having someone with him. It made him a lot less scared.

 

* * *

 

Armin’s grandfather found them about an hour later, sound asleep, with their heads pressed together. He didn’t wake them up, though, instead quietly closing the door and going back to the party.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Armin, school had always been an escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter 2. :) I'm hoping that a new chapter will be posted at least once a week, but we'll see how that turns out. It all depends on how much school work I get. Plus, I just got the new Pokemon game, so a lot of my time'll be spent playing that.  
> Also, I've pretty much figured out where I want this story to go. It's all just a matter of putting it into words now.  
> I know this chapter was shorter than the last one, but the story's going to start going a lot faster during the next chapter and it'd be weird to suddenly set a completely different pace in the middle of a chapter. Don't worry though; it'll slow down again soon enough.

_Howling ghosts they reappear_

_In mountains that are stacked with fear_

_But you’re a king and I’m a lionheart_

_A lionheart_

_-King and Lionheart_ , Of Monsters and Men

 

* * *

 

School started a few weeks later. Armin was enrolled in the local elementary school, in kindergarten; he was thankfully put in the same class as Eren and Mikasa but, much to their dismay, Sasha got put in another class. The night before the first day, he sat in the living room with his grandfather, putting his school supplies into his brand new backpack.

“Mummy helped me pick out my stuff for school last year,” Armin said quietly, putting a brand-new pack of markers into the backpack. “She didn’t buy everything that was on the list, though, because she said I didn’t need it.”

Armin rarely talked about his parents or what it had been like with them. His grandfather didn’t even know what exactly had happened. He knew they had been arrested after Armin called 999 one night, but he didn’t know why the boy had done what he had done and he refused to talk about it. He also knew his son and daughter-in-law had been charged with several accounts of drug use and possession, as well as child abuse and neglect. About a month after their arrest, Armin had testified against his parents in court, but he had only said the bare minimum; just enough to prove what they had done.

Mikasa, Eren, and Sasha had no idea why Armin had really moved in with his grandfather. Instead he told them that his parents had gone away, almost hoping they’d interpret that as them dying. Of course, their parents knew a bit, but that was even less than what his grandfather knew. Maybe one day Armin would tell the whole story, but for now he kept it bottled up inside, only bringing the memories out when he was by himself, carefully going over them with unsure emotions.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Armin’s grandfather walked with him to the bus stop. Eren was already there with his mother, standing by the stop sign. He perked up when he saw Armin, smiling widely at him.

“This is gonna be the best school year ever!” he said cheerfully, rocking back on his heels.

Armin nodded slightly, picking at the sleeves of his sweater. He knew this year would be much better than his last one, but he still had reservations about it. Before he could think too much, however, Mikasa and Sasha arrived, grinning and talking happily. The bus came soon after, yellow and looming as it stopped in front of the group of kids and adults. The doors opened, and an older lady with short graying hair smiled down at them. Eren grabbed Armin’s hand, leading him towards the bus and up the stairs. The small boy was able to give his grandfather a quick wave before the doors shut and they all took their seats.

They were the youngest kids on the bus, and sat at the very front, two to a seat; Armin with Eren, and Mikasa with Sasha. The ride wasn’t very long, though Armin wished it was longer; anything to prolong getting to school.

Normally, Armin loved school. He had only been in reception in England and he hadn’t had any friends, but it had been a chance to get away from home and learn new things. And while he had friends this time, he was actually happy at home; his grandfather had tons of books that he would read to Armin, and they often talked about the things he liked. Eren was always over, and they were often outside running around with Mikasa and Sasha. Going to school would thrust him right back into the unfamiliar just as he was finally getting used to his new life. He still tried to be excited though, listening attentively as Eren chatted with him the entire way.

As they climbed off the bus at school, Armin kept his grip tight on Eren’s hand. Mikasa grabbed Armin’s other hand, and Sasha grabbed her’s. Together, they walked to the front of the school where the other students were lining up by their teachers. They had to leave Sasha then, but there were only two kindergarten classes, side by side, so they were able to stay relatively close to each other. Armin stood quietly at the back of the line as the remaining buses arrived and the kids on them got off. It didn’t seem anyone else from their class would be arriving, so when the bell rang and their teacher led them inside he stayed at the back, behind Eren and Mikasa.

The classroom was near the front of the school, in a little hallway that branched off near the office. There were about five classrooms in it, all for kindergarten and first grade. It wasn’t much different from his class in England; the desks were put together in groups of four, and there were posters and drawings tacked up everywhere. There was a box with markers, pencil crayons, and other supplies in it in the middle of each group, and a name tag was stuck to the corner of every desk with Velcro.

Everyone was told to find their names. Armin found his quickly, though he realized that neither Eren nor Mikasa were in his group. This made him a little nervous, but he still sat down, keeping his eyes focused on his hands.  

When everyone was settled, the teacher stood at the front of the classroom, smiling at them all. She introduced herself, and told them several things about herself, like what things she liked to do and where she was from. She then told them to introduce themselves like she had, starting with the boy sitting beside Mikasa. As he stood up, Armin glanced over at him, and felt that same strange feeling he’d gotten when he first met Eren.

The boy had short light brown hair and dark eyes, and as he stood he gave everyone a big smirk that Armin could only describe as undoubtedly _him_ —which confused him to no end, as he’d never seen the boy before in his life. Armin felt as if his name was on the very tip of his tongue, but no matter how hard he thought he couldn’t remember it. It was like it was buried in the deepest part of his mind, and refused to move.

However, when the boy introduced himself as Jean, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world—of course his name was Jean. What else would it be? Even as he sat down, Armin kept his eyes focused on him. Nothing else like that happened with the rest of his classmate’s introductions, though. None of them felt familiar, none of them had names Armin felt he should know.

When it was finally his turn, he slowly stood up, balling his hands nervously around the sleeves of his sweater. Everyone’s eyes were on him, most of them wanting to know who the kid they’d never seen before was. “Um, I’m Armin,” he started, stuttering and fumbling around his words. “I like to read and draw, and—,”

“You sound funny,” one of the other students cried out, cutting him off. “Why do you sound funny?” The teacher quickly scolded them, telling them not to interrupt, before motioning at Armin to continue.

“Uh, I’m from England,” he said quietly. “Everyone sounds like this there.”

This seemed to fascinate the majority of the class. “Where’s England?” someone asked, looking from Armin to the teacher.

“It’s in Europe,” she explained, going over to the board and pulling down a map. She pointed to where they were, in America, before showing them all where England was. “It’s this island right here. Where in England did you live, Armin?”

“London,” he said, slowly sitting back down. Everyone was looking at either him or the board, and when he glanced at Eren he had the biggest grin on his face. He still didn’t like having so many eyes on him, and curled in on himself, picking at his nails.

“Why did you move here?” the teacher asked, general curiosity in her voice.

“Um, I-I came to live with my grandfather,” Armin explained. The teacher nodded, and thankfully didn’t ask any more questions. The next person stood up to introduce themselves, and Armin sank down into his chair.

 

* * *

 

School wasn’t nearly as bad as he had thought, even though he already knew it wouldn’t be horrible. The people he sat with in class were nice, though they liked getting him to say different things to hear how they would sound. At lunch and during recesses, he spent his time with Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha. He loved learning, and was one of the smartest people in his class; his teacher was constantly praising him. There were, however, some people who liked to pick on him, but Eren and Mikasa always stood up for him.

Halloween rolled around almost two months after school started. Armin had never really liked the holiday; his parents never took him out trick-or-treating, and instead spent the night at parties, leaving him alone at home. Last year, he had sat in front of the window looking out on the street and had watched the few kids who lived in his neighbourhood walking around with their parents, dressed up. Not many people trick-or-treated on his street, as it wasn’t a particularly good area of the city.

This year, however, he would be going with Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha. They were all very scandalized when he told them he’d never gone trick-or-treating, and vowed to fix that. They helped him pick out a costume (a wizard), and ran him through all the ropes as if trick-or-treating were a very serious business.

On October 31st, his grandfather gave him a bag for his candy and brought him over to the Jaegers. Eren’s father, Grisha, and Mikasa’s father would be taking the four kids around the neighbourhood. Everyone else was already there when he arrived, and left soon after.

Eren, who was dressed a knight, insisted on ringing the doorbell at every house. After a while, Mikasa got tired of this, and punched him in the face to get him to stop. And while she did get in trouble for doing it, Eren stopped, which seemed to make her happy. At about 8:30, they got tired and cold, so they all trekked back to Eren’s house. There, they went through their candy together, trading and talking about which were their favourites.

Armin’s grandfather came to pick him up near 9pm, and he fell asleep still dressed in his costume.

 

* * *

 

“Armin, get down!” Eren whispered harshly at the blond boy, grabbing his head and pushing him down behind the pile of snow. “Mikasa will see you!”

“Sorry,” Armin said, pressing himself up against the snow. There were several snow balls stacked beside him, ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice.

Christmas vacation had started two days ago. Since then, there had already been a large storm that had covered the ground in a foot-tall white, fluffy blanket. Eren had dragged him outside to build snow forts, and they’d ended up in a snowball war with Mikasa and Sasha, who were currently nowhere to be seen.

“Wait… I think I hear them…” Eren muttered, slowly peeking about the snow bank. As soon as he did so, however, there was the sound of two loud battle cries as Mikasa and Sasha jumped over the bank, pelted them with snowballs. Armin was thrown onto his back as he was attacked from all directions, and while Eren attempted to make an escape he didn’t get far before a particularly hard throw from Mikasa nearly knocked him over.

“Ha! We win!” Sasha said, grinning at the two boys.

Eren glared at her. “ _Dummköpfen_ ,” he mumbled, rubbing his head where Mikasa had hit him.

“Your mom said you’re not allowed to say that,” Mikasa said, crossing her arms and smirking at him.

“ _Dummkopf_!” Eren yelled, sticking his tongue out at her before running off as she started chasing after him.

 

* * *

 

 On Christmas Eve, Armin sat by his window, looking up at the sky. The light was off in Eren’s room, just across from his, but he could see the boy’s nightlight shining dully from a corner. The moon and stars, however, were bright, and the snow sparkled several feet beneath his window.

He wondered what his parents were doing. He hadn’t heard from them since he saw them in court, all those months ago. He wondered if they celebrated Christmas in jail. The holiday had never been horrible for Armin; he would decorate a tree with his parents, and on the morning of December 25th there’d be some presents under the tree—just a few small things, but he always loved them.

Armin didn’t miss his parents very often, but as he thought about their past few Christmases together he felt tears stinging his eyes. Shuffling away from the window, he crawled beneath his covers, pulling his blanket up around his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find this story on FF.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts  
> And on my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/post/64333030484/dead-hearts-chapter-1


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes things are too broken to be fixed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry oh god I did not mean for this chapter to take this long (it's mostly because I'm terrible at writing for kids and got distracted by Pokemon).  
> I'm gonna really really really try and get the next one up faster.  
> ALSO there are implications of abuse in this chapter. It's not described in too much detail, but if that sort of stuff triggers you or makes you uncomfortable PLEASE don't read it. It will be showing up again quite often in other chapters, as well.

_Don’t be scared of avalanches,_

_Tucked up in my snowy branches._

_I will_

_Oh, I will_

_Oh, I will_

_I will keep you safe._

_-Avalanches,_ A Fine Frenzy

 

* * *

 

 

Spring arrived in a flurry of rain and melting snow that left behind puddles of mud and slush. Everything felt damp and cold, even as the weather started to warm from the winter months. However, this wasn’t enough to keep Armin, Mikasa, Eren, and Sasha inside. Even when it was raining they could be seen outside, jumping through puddles and slipping across the slick grass, generally making a mess of themselves. And while they couldn’t care less their parents and grandparents, on the other, weren’t too happy about it all.

However, the rain did pass and all the snow melted completely. Summer came, and with it the end of the school year. At first Armin found himself actually missing it, but instead started spending his time reading books from the local library and playing with Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha.

On a particularly hot day in early July, Eren suggested that they go swimming. They asked their parents, and Armin asked his grandfather, and they all agreed. So they put on their bathing suits, grabbed a few towels, and drove the public pool closest to their neighbourhood. It was outside, and was quite large, with three diving boards in different heights and two waterslides.

“This is the _größte_ pool ever!” Eren said, grinning at Armin. “I came here once last summer.”

“Grossta?” Mikasa asked, narrowing her eyes at the brown-haired boy. “Eren, why do you always say things in German?”

“Well I don’t what it is in English!” Eren said defensively, glaring at her.

“But Armin never speaks British,” Sasha said, crossing her arms. “He probably doesn’t know a bunch of words in English, too.”

“Um… British isn’t a real language,” Armin pointed out. “We speak English.”

Sasha seemed very surprised by this. “What?!” she asked, giving the blond an incredulous look. “Then why do you have that accent? Eren has an accent and it’s because he speaks German.”

Armin shrugged. “We just do,” he said. “Why do _you_ have _your_ accent?”

“I… have an accent?” Sasha asked, her eyes widening a bit and her face going thoughtful. A few second later she looked like she might start going through some sort of existential crisis, so Mikasa quickly changed the subject.

“Who cares about languages and accents?” she said, running over to where her mother had sat down with a book and kicking off her shoes. “Let’s go swimming!”

Eren opened his mouth to argue more, but the prospect of swimming obviously seemed much more fun to him as he went over to where his parents were and started to take off his shoes and shirt. Sasha followed suit, as did Armin.

However, as he was about to yank off his shirt and run after his friends, who were impatiently waiting for him so they could take off into the water, he paused. Even though it had almost been a whole year since he moved here, the four friends had never gone swimming or anything like that together before—which meant that Armin always had a shirt on.

Which meant that the jagged scars criss-crossing his chest and back were always covered.

The memory of the incident that was responsible for the scars was fuzzy, almost like an old picture, worn at the edges with stains over the important parts. Except the memory wasn’t that old; it had happened less than two years ago. Still, he wasn’t sure what had led up to the event. He remembered that it was at night, in the early hours of the morning, and that his father had been drunk and angry about something. Armin doesn’t know how he ended up with several long cuts across his body, but he remembers hearing his mother screaming about something, and then a loud crash. She came in to his room a few minutes later and fixed him up, though she didn’t do a particularly good job, which means that most of the cuts scarred.

“Armin, hurry up!” Eren called, running over to him. “You’re so slow!”

Armin frowned. When he first moved in with his grandfather, the man had seemed very shocked with the scars. He never asked about them, though. Armin didn’t know why he had reacted that way, but he didn’t want Eren, Mikasa, or Sasha to do the same.  

“We’re gonna go without you!” Sasha yelled in a sing-songy voice, before slowly making her way towards the pool with Mikasa.

“I’m coming!” Armin called back at her, pursing his lips together. Quickly, he took his shirt off, before he could change his mind, and ran over with Eren to where Sasha and Mikasa were waiting.

Mikasa seemed to be the first to notice the scars. The most noticeable one ran across his chest, just below his collarbone. The others were fainter, running along the side of his ribs and across his stomach. The girl, however, didn’t say anything, instead quickly scurrying down the steps leading into the water. Sasha, on the other hand, didn’t notice them at all; she was too focused on chasing after Mikasa.

Eren, though, did notice them and, unlike Mikasa, had to ask about them. “Hey, Armin, what happened to your back?” he asked, scowling a little as he looked at the scar that slashed across Armin’s back.

Armin paused. “Um… An accident…” he mumbled, sinking into the water so Eren couldn’t see the scars anymore. “It’s not that important…”

Eren was about to say something else, most likely a question about the ‘accident’ when Mikasa called over to them.

“What are you two slowpokes doing?” she cried, giggling as Sasha tried to pull her under the water. “Come on!”

Armin stood and ran over to where they were going, hoping Eren would stop asking questions, though he didn’t get too far before he fell face-first into the water. When he surfaced, Mikasa, Sasha, and Eren were all laughing.

 

* * *

 

 

When first grade starts, all four of them are in the same class. They’re often getting in trouble for yelling at each other across the room and actually getting up when they’re not supposed to go visit each other; within the first two weeks, Eren gets a phone call home for not only trying to have a conversation with Armin from the opposite side of the class but also for throwing a marker at another student. When the boy isn’t allowed to go outside for a few days because of it, they all seem to realize that, if they don’t want the same to happen to them, they should just quiet down during class.

In mid-November, they’re told to draw their family, labeling all the people in the picture, and that they’re going to tell the rest of the class all about it. As everyone else gets to work, Armin sits, staring at the blank page in front of him.

He had no idea who to draw. He was definitely going to include his grandfather, but what about his parents? They were his family, too, and he loved them, no matter what. But he was pretty sure you had to live with someone to include them in a drawing of your family. There were rules, weren’t there? There were always rules.

Raising his hand, the small boy waited until the teacher stood and walked over to him. “I don’t know what to draw,” he said as she kneeled beside him, a slightly confused look on her face.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “You draw your family.”

“But who in my family,” Armin said, frowning slightly at the blank paper. “I don’t who in my family to draw!”

This only seemed to make the woman more confused. “Well, you would draw your parents, wouldn’t you? And any siblings you have.” She explained.

“I don’t live with my parents, though,” Armin told her.

“Why?”

Armin shrugged, looking down at his hands; all the kids around him were watching the conversation, and he really didn’t want to say that his parents were in _jail_.

“Who do you live with, then?” the teacher asked.

“My grandpa.” Armin replied, his voice quiet.

“Well, then why don’t you draw the two of you together?” she suggested, giving him a small smile. “Your family doesn’t have to be big to be a family.”

 

* * *

 

Later that day, Armin sat at the kitchen table, his chin resting atop his hands, staring at the paper in front of him. He’d drawn himself and his grandfather already, but the picture still felt too… empty.

“Grandpa,” he spoke up as the old man walked into the kitchen. “Should I add Mummy and Daddy?”

His grandfather paused. “Uh… Well, Armin, if you want to, I think you should,” he said, after a few seconds of thinking. “You should draw whoever you consider to be your family.”

After a bit of thought, Armin decided he would add his parents. However, when he went to draw them, he realized he couldn’t exactly remember what they looked like. He knew that his mother had blonde hair and blue eyes, like he did, and that his father had brown hair and grey eyes, but he didn’t remember how long their hair was, or what shade of blonde or brown it was. Should he use the dark brown pencil crayon or the tan one? Would his dad be taller than his grandfather? What type of clothes should they be wearing?

The more he thought about it, the more Armin realized just how much he had forgotten about his parents. It had only been about a year and half since he last saw them, but he hadn’t had any form of communication with either of them at all during that time. He didn’t even remember what their voices sounded like.

Thinking about this, tears welled up in his eyes. How could he forget that much about his own parents?

His grandfather, seeming to notice the boy’s distress, furrowed his eyebrows at him. “Armin, what’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling by him.

“I don’t remember my parents…” Armin said, his voice muffled as he tried to hold back the tears. “I mean, I _remember_ them, but I can’t remember exactly what they looked like or what they sounded like. I’m the worst kid ever…”

His grandfather reached up and grabbed Armin’s hands, holding them in his. “Armin, listen to me,” he said gently. “You are not a horrible child; your parents are the ones who are horrible. You don’t deserve the life you got one bit, okay? And I know your parents probably love you, and you love them, but that doesn’t mean that they’re meant to look after you.”

Armin didn’t really understand, but he nodded anyway; the tears still came, however, and he clung to his grandfather as he cried.

 

* * *

 

He grew very quiet over the next few days. He dreaded having to present his drawing to the class, and when his turn came he got it over with as quickly as possible. Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha all asked him what was wrong, but he always told them that everything was fine. However, as the months passed after the incident, he got less sad over it, and seemed to forget about it almost completely. 

Christmas came. One day in mid-December, Armin and his grandfather stood in the living room, surrounded by boxes of ornaments.

“Careful,” his grandfather said as the small boy took a glass angel out of its container and walked over to the tree, standing tall in the corner of the room. “That was your grandmother’s.”

Armin nodded, and gently placed the ornament on the strongest branch he saw. His grandfather gave him a small smile, and the boy watched for a few seconds as the branch bent under the weight of the glass, just to make sure it didn’t fall. A few minutes later, when his grandfather handed him an old knitted snowflake, Armin asked him a question that he had been thinking about for a while.

“Grandpa,” he started, looking up at the old man. “What was my grandma like?”

His grandfather didn’t say anything for a while, mulling the question over. “Well,” he said, sitting down on the one clear space on the couch. “She was the sweetest person I’ve ever known—she was nice to everyone, no matter how they treated her back. She always saw the good in people, and could probably make anyone laugh. But she was as stubborn as anyone can be; she’d go to the ends of the Earth to prove that she was always right.”

Armin smiled, tracing the designs of the snowflake in his hands. “I wish I could have met her…” he said quietly.

“Oh, Armin, she would have loved you to bits,” his grandfather said, getting up and giving the boy a big hug.

 

* * *

 

About an hour later, Armin was sitting on the floor looking up at the tree. They’d hung up all the ornaments that would fit, and his grandfather had plugged the lights it; they made the glass ornaments glitter and shine, like colourful stars.

“Do you know how my mummy and daddy are doing?” he asked suddenly, looking over to where his grandfather was sitting, a mug in his hands. He’d started thinking about them a lot as Christmas got closer; he always missed them the most at holidays. “I hope they’re okay.”

“I’m sure they are,” his grandfather said quietly. “They probably miss you as much as you miss them.”

Armin shrugged, turning his gaze back to the tree; outside, the setting sun was making the snow orange.

 

* * *

 

During the summer between first and second grade, Sasha moved to Florida. Armin didn’t really pay attention as to why, but he knew he would miss her; they all would. They sat together on her lawn, watching as the boxes full of her stuff were moved from her house to the moving truck. They all cried when it came time to say goodbye, clinging to each other and not wanting to let go. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin stood in the middle of the road, jumping and waving and calling Sasha’s name as the Braus’ car drove off with the girl in the backseat.

For several weeks they had no idea what to do with themselves; Eren and Mikasa had been with Sasha since they were toddlers, and had never really been without her. They spent more time than they would have liked to lying on the grass in one of their backyards, wondering what to do.

However, in late July, Eren came to the sudden realization that it had almost been two years since Armin moved to America. They were lounging around on the deck behind Mikasa’s house, watching as her cat, Milos, wandered around the yard chasing bugs, when he sat up very suddenly, nearly pushing Armin off the bench.

“You’ve been here for almost two years!” he said, loud enough for Milos to look over at the three children. “Can you believe that?!”

Armin was, actually, a bit surprised when he realized that Eren was right; it had been two years since he’d moved from England. In all honesty, it only felt like a few months to him.

“We should do something to celebrate,” Mikasa said, scooping down to pick up her cat as he wandered over to where they were sitting, wondering what all the commotion was about.

“How?” Armin asked.

“What about a party?” Eren suggested. “Just a small one though; just the three of us!”

Armin, who had become nervous at the mention of a party, relaxed. Even though it had been two years, he still hated parties. Almost everyone knew that by now, even if they didn’t exactly know the reasons. He’d attended all of Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha’s birthdays, but that was about it. He knew now that most parties weren’t like the ones his parents would throw, but he just couldn’t get over his dislike of them. If it was just the three of them, however, Armin knew he would enjoy himself.

They all agreed on the party idea, though in the end they ended up inviting two more quests: Milos, and Eren’s hamster, Piepsen. They had the party in Mikasa’s basement, with cookies and juice, and cat treats and yogurt drops for Milos and Piepsen. It lasted quite a while, and they had fun, though Piepsen ended up spending most of it hiding in the microwave of Mikasa’s toy kitchen to protect her from Milos, on whom a cup of grape juice got spilled.

Armin still thought it was the best party ever.

 

* * *

 

Second grade passes by rather uneventfully. They all get several letters from Sasha over the course of the year, wishing them a Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday, or just talking about what she’s been up to. When summer comes again they spend their time exploring the forest around their neighbourhood and running through sprinklers. In mid-July Eren goes to Germany for a few weeks to visit his grandparents. Armin and Mikasa sit around reading while he’s gone, for the most part, though occasionally they reenact parts from their favourite books using Mikasa’s rather extensive dress-up collection. When Eren comes back, the two of them insist on wearing costumes to the woods.

They start third grade in September. The beginning of the school year goes by normally, until Christmas arrives. Winter break had just started, and Armin was sitting in his basement with Eren. They were playing with Armin’s toy dinosaurs, and were getting ready for a huge fight to go down between two opposing teams, when the phone rang upstairs. They ignored it at first, but just as the fight was about to start Armin’s grandfather called him upstairs. Scowling, the boy put down his dinosaurs.

“Don’t start without me!” he called to Eren as he walked up the stairs, finding his grandfather waiting for him at the top, the phone in his hand.

“Armin,” he said, handing the phone to his grandson when he reached him. “It’s your mother.”

Armin froze. His… mother? His mother was calling him. She was on the other side of the phone. Slowly, he took it in his hands, holding it up to his ear. “…Mummy?” his voice was quiet, and even though he was almost nine-years-old now he was suddenly five again, and he was watching his parents getting taken away again.

“Armin. Oh my god, Armin,” his mother’s voice was different than he remembered it; it sounded sadder, and more troubled.

“Mummy…” Armin repeated, and then he was crying. It didn’t matter to him what had happened before he’d been taken away and sent to America; he was a little boy who hadn’t heard from his mother in almost four years. And he didn’t care that she’d been a terrible parent: he loved her.

“Armin, oh my little boy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” His mother was crying too, and they stayed on the phone together as long as they could, not really saying much but reveling in the sound of each other’s voices.

Throughout the whole thing, Eren stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, listening as his best friend cried.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it started moving really fast near the end, but we're kind of going into this little area where not a lot happens, so I may or may not do a timeskip at the beginning of the next chapter. I'm just trying to get to where all the more exciting stuff starts happening, so bear with me.  
> You can also find this story on FF.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts  
> And on my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> I'm thinking of making a tag for this story on Tumblr, just so I can post update and stuff like that and it'll be easier to find chapters than looking through my writing tag (though it's relatively new so it's not too cluttered atm).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Worthless. Pathetic. Heretic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are taking a lot longer than I'd like to write. :( The bit of story outline I managed to write before starting this fic has proven to be absolutely useless, and I hate writing a chapter without an outline, meaning I've basically been spending one week writing the outline for the chapter (I'm really slow at writing) and then the next actually writing the story.  
> Because of this, I'm probably going to be going on a little hiatus, just so I can write out how I want the next few chapters at least to go. It won't be super long, though; I'm hoping the next chapter will be up by December 8th, if not sooner. But after that they'll almost definitely start coming way faster, so there's that. :)  
> Oh, and I'd like to thank everyone who's commented or given this story kudos or even just read it. You're all amazing!!  
> Other than that, there's not much else for me to say, other than that this chapter is shorter than I'd like it to be. I just really wanted to get it done for today. :/

_Summer was painted on our skin,_

_And those secrets hidden in our childish lips_

_They would die for a kiss._

_Fall was always left in your eyes,_

_Just a fleck of yellow light;_

_Like the sunrise, like the twilight._

_-Weeping Willow_ , The Hush Sound

 

* * *

 

_Armin was standing in the middle of a large crowd. People ran past him, screaming and looking over their shoulders. In the distance, he could see huge, hulking shadows coming towards them; their footsteps shook the ground, and the smell of blood and rocky dust filled the air._

_“Eren! Mikasa!” Armin called his friends’ names as they took off, towards the menacing shadows. “Come back! We need to go! Come back!” The two didn’t listen to him, though; they rounded a corner and disappeared._

_Armin started running then; running with everyone else. He wondered about his grandfather, and Mikasa, and Eren. Where were they? Were they okay?_

_Would he ever see them again?_

_Everything seemed to speed up. Armin was being propelled by some unknown force, wind rushing in his ears and the people and buildings around him molding into one dark blur. He found himself standing on a boat, beside his grandfather. There were dozens of people crowded around him, and he searched their faces for Mikasa or Eren. Those still standing on the bank of the canal yelled loudly at the soldiers keeping them from getting on the boat. In the distance, the giant shadows moved about the town, and dying screams echoed in Armin’s ears._

* * *

 

He woke up with a cry, his heart hammering in his chest. His grandfather was in his room a few seconds later, turning on the light and crouching down beside the boy.

“Armin, what’s wrong?” the old man asked, and Armin took several deep, calming breaths.

“I-I had a nightmare,” he explained, but when he thought back to it, all he could remember was a dark, miscoloured blur, filled with screams and Mikasa and Eren’s names floating through his head. 

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Arlert! Armin!”

Armin turned around at the sound of his name, only to pause and wish he hadn’t when he saw who had been calling for him. The boy smirked, running to catch up to him.

It was early October, several months after Armin’s nightmare, something he’d all but forgotten about. Fourth grade had started about a month ago, and for the first time he wasn’t in the same class as either Eren or Mikasa. He’d been nervous at first, but it hadn’t been too horrible until about two weeks after school started. A kid in his class, who had just moved there, decided to start teasing and making fun of Armin, mostly for how he said things. He would sit in class and mimic anything the boy said in a ridiculously horrible accent, loud enough for most of the students to hear but not the teacher. After a few weeks, other kids in their grade were in on it as well. Usually, Armin managed to ignore it.

“Why, hello, Armin!” the boy grinned, adopting the terrible British accent he spoke in around Armin. “Where are you off to on this fine evening?”

Armin didn’t say anything, just turning away from him and going on his way. The other boy, however, didn’t seem too pleased with this.

“Where are you going, old chap?” he called after him. “Off to visit the Queen? Indeed, tell her I said good evening!”

“Leave me alone!” Armin yelled back; at this point, Eren, who had been standing by a nearby tree with Mikasa, caught sight of the situation.

“Armin, what’s going on?” he asked, running over to where his friend stood.

“Nothing…” Taking Eren’s hand, Armin started to try and walk away from situation; the other boy, however, wasn’t about to give up.

“Don’t leave in such a hurry!” he called, still in the same accent, hurrying to catch up to them.

“I said to leave me alone!” Armin cried, whirling around to face the boy. He had a determined look in his eyes, and his teeth were clenched together. Eren, standing behind him, seemed rather surprised by the change in his usually quiet, mild-tempered friend.

The other kid looked shocked, as well. He opened his mouth to say something, but someone started calling his name. The boy cast Armin one last, strange look before running off towards his friends.

 

* * *

 

Armin sat with his back against a chain-link fence, picking the blades of grass at his feet as Mikasa and Eren stood beside him.

“I just don’t get why that kid’s picking on you…” Eren muttered, kicking at the ground. “What did you ever do to him?!”

“Eren, it’s fine,” Armin said, dropping the handful of grass he had collected onto the now-bare patch of earth. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You can’t let people kick you around like that, Armin!” Eren cried, mostly ignoring his friend’s attempts to get him to calm down. “Especially that… idiot! He’s just a jerk, a moron, a… a… an _Arschloch_!”

Mikasa raised an eyebrow at him. “Eren, I don’t know what that means, but I’m pretty sure that if your mom was here she’d get mad at you for saying it,” she said.

“I think it means asshole…” the boy mumbled, before shrugging. “I dunno, I heard my mom say it once when she was talking on the phone with somebody.”

“Eren…” Armin gave his friend a scolding look.

“What?! It’s true…” Eren said, scowling at the ground. “But don’t worry, Armin! Me and Mikasa won’t let anybody be mean to you ever again.”

Mikasa nodded in agreement, and Armin smiled at the two. Suddenly, he was reminded of the time he sat in Eren’s living room, remembering his two friends running to protect him before he even know them. A weird feeling spread in his stomach, but he didn’t let it show; Mikasa and Eren had worried about him enough.

 

* * *

 

Despite Eren and Mikasa’s promises, the bullying slowly got worse over the months. Armin tried to hide it from the two at first, but it didn’t work well; he was often tormented during recess. After Mikasa and Eren found out that the bullying hadn’t stopped, they would often chase after the kids who were doing it. It never worked very well, however. Still, Armin was comforted by the fact that his friends cared so much about him.

Summer came as a much-needed break. The three friends spent their time as care-free as possible, knowing that when school started again, so would the bullying.

 

* * *

 

The tormenting started almost as soon as fifth grade began for Armin. It was just the same as last year—kids taunting and mimicking him whenever they got the chance. However, in mid-October, one kid “accidentally” shoved Armin to the ground during recess. The boy landed on his hands and knees in a pile of muddy leaves, and the kid who pushed him smirked and started walking away.

Words rang in Armin’s ears—hurtful words, some he recognized and some he didn’t.

_“Worthless,” slurred drunkenly past cigarette-stained lips._

_“Pathetic.” A jeer revealing crooked and missing teeth in a 10-year-old mouth._

_“Heretic.” A shadow smirked from the darkness, shoving him against a wall._

Suddenly, hands were wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him up off the ground. Armin flinched instinctively, getting ready to try and escape before realizing it was Mikasa.

“Armin, are you okay?” she asked, concern etched onto her face.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” Armin said, trying to shake some of the mud off his hands and wiping at the knees of his pants. “Where’s Eren?”

Mikasa didn’t answer, instead glancing over to where the sound of several angry screams was coming from. Following her line of vision, Armin saw that, a little ways away from them, Eren was clinging to the pack of the bully, pounding at him with his fists.

“Eren!” the blond cried, running towards the scene.

The boy didn’t seem to hear him, and instead continued attacking the other kid, who screamed at him to get off. Grabbing the back of Eren’s shirt, Armin tried in vain to pull him away.

“Eren, stop! What are you doing?!” he yelled. Mikasa appeared beside him then, and started pulling at their friend as well.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” Suddenly, a teacher was there, pushing Mikasa and Armin out of the way and grabbing Eren, successfully yanking him off the other boy.

“He just attacked me, out of nowhere!” the boy said, rubbing at his cheek, where Eren had managed to punch him rather hard.

“ _Schwein_!” Eren yelled, looking like he was about to have another go at the kid before the teacher grabbed his arm, holding him back.

“Both of you, come with me,” he snapped, taking hold of the other boy’s arm as well, and leading the two of them away.

 

* * *

 

Eren ended up suspended for two days, and wasn’t allowed to leave his house after school or on weekends for a month. That incident, however, brought to light Armin’s situation with the bullies, something he’d refused to tell his grandfather or any teachers about beforehand. His grandfather called the school, and the guilty kids were punished accordingly.

Afterwards, the bullying seemed to lighten up; it was still there, but Armin could deal with it.

 

* * *

 

In mid-November, Armin’s grandfather announced that the two of them will be going to England for Christmas. They were going to stay at his sister’s, Armin’s great-aunt, house, and he would be meeting most of his other family members as well.

Armin was, of course, excited for the trip; it had been five years since he’d last been to England. Silently, he wondered if he’d be able to see his parents again, though he knew the chances of that were slim to none. Still, he clung to the small hope that, maybe, he would.

They left early in the morning on December 17th, two days before winter break started. Armin said goodbye to Mikasa and Eren the day before; the two spent most of the time complaining about how boring it would be without him. He just laughed, and promised he’d be back soon.

 

* * *

 

The flight was long and tiring. Armin spent it reading, or looking out the window as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean; he’d never actually been to the sea, but when he caught glimpses of it through the clouds beneath him, it looked beautiful, all blue and sparkling in the sun.

When they landed in London, Armin was exhausted and cranky, even though it was only 1:30pm back home. They still had to drive an hour or so to where his Great-Aunt Isla lived, and he slept the entire way. The old woman was waiting for them in her front window; as soon as she saw the car roll up her driveway, she jumped up and ran to the door flinger it open.

“Peter!” she cried, running outside in nothing but slippers, despite the soft dusting of snow on the ground. The second her brother was out of the car, she threw her arms around him. “Oh, it’s been _so long_!”

Armin’s grandfather hugged her back, smiling widely. “It really has been too long.” He agreed.

“You sound so American!” Isla laughed, before noticing Armin, standing quietly near the van. “You must be Armin!” she said, going over the boy and smiling down at him; he nodded. “It’s very nice to meet you. Now! Let’s go inside before we all freeze to death. I’ll help you with your things.”

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days leading up to Christmas, several more people arrived and crammed themselves into Isla’s rather small house. Another great-aunt and her husband showed up, as well as Armin’s father’s brother and his family. He met his three cousins, one of whom was older than him by two years and the others who were a few years younger. The four of them squeezed into Isla’s sewing room, with three mattresses on the floor and tables covered in thread and fabric.

On Christmas Eve, Armin lied awake on his makeshift bed, staring up at the ceiling; it was too dark to see much, but he could trace the faint outline of the light with his eyes. His cousins slept soundly around him, their breathing almost inaudible beneath the sound of the adults talking and shuffling around in the living room.

The boy had only been half-listening, not really paying attention to what they were saying, until he heard his father’s name mentioned. His attention peeked, Armin crawled silently out of bed, making sure not to wake his cousins, and crept to the door, where he could hear better.

His uncle was talking about he’d gone to visit his brother in prison a few months ago. He was about to say more, but his wife shushed him before he got the chance. Even as the conversation travelled to other topics, Armin stayed, crouched by the door, until someone walked back and he scurried back to bed.

 

* * *

 

They went back home on January 2nd. Mikasa and Eren were sitting outside on Eren’s front yard, surrounded by snowmen, waiting for him when they pulled up in front of his grandfather’s house. Before he was even out of the car they were trying to talk to him, telling him how much they missed him and that they spent all day outside waiting for him and built at least one hundred snowmen to pass the time.

 

* * *

 

They visited England again that summer. Mikasa wasn’t too happy about that, as Eren was going to Germany at around the same time, leaving her all alone. When both of them got back, she spent at least a week complaining to them about how bored she had been and how they were not allowed to both go to Europe at the same time ever again.

The bullying lightened up considerably in sixth grade, mostly because the ones who did it the most had moved to the junior high school. However, in seventh grade it started right back up where it left off when Armin started attending the school, except with a much more violent note. Armin ended the second week with a bloody nose and a torn-up book, and after that everything just went downhill. The bullies came up with new names to taunt and attack him with, and remembered not to do anything mean to him when Eren and Mikasa were around. They sought him out when he was alone, just to push him against the wall and spit words like faggot at him.

Despite all this, Armin never fought back, and he never told Eren or Mikasa about it; he always felt useless and pathetic when they ran to his rescue, and he just stood back and watched it happen. Instead, he hid from the bullies as best as he could, and always cleaned himself up before anybody saw him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally going to start getting somewhere with the next few chapters. :D Hurray!  
> You can also find this story on FF.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts  
> And on my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a teenager will always be hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry i'm so sorry oh god i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry  
> I finally finished this chapter almost 20 days after I said it'd be out i'm so sorry. Writing up the outlines took a lot longer than I thought it would and it just never occured to me to work on this chapter at the same time so i didn't start it until like the 21st or something. On the bright side though I have up to like chapter 16 planned out, so they'll be coming faster now. And this is a pretty long chapter (compared to all the other ones) so yay!  
> Also Merry Christmas! (even though this chapter isn't Christmassy at all but it's Christmas Eve right now so whatever)  
> And thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's commented and given this story kudos and even just looked at it i love you all so much! :)

_Summer evening breezes blew,_

_Drawing voices deep from you_

_Lead by your beating heart._

_What a year and what a night._

_What terrifying final sights._

_Put out your beating heart._

_-Laura Palmer,_ Bastille

 

* * *

 

 _There’s a loud, pounding sound in his ears, like the constant beating of a drum. It echoes around his mind and imprints itself there; a never-ending_ thud _,_ thud _,_ thud _._

_Opening his eyes, Armin looks down at his hands. A heart is nestled in them, like he were cradling an injured bird. He holds it like it is something fragile, like if he were to even breathe on it, it would shatter. Blood seeps through his fingers and pools at his feet, and when Armin glances at his chest he finds a gaping hole. He can see the bones of his ribs and other tissue, but where his heart was there is nothing. Just a big empty space._

_The heart, his heart, is pounding in his hands, matching the_ thud, thud, thud _of the drums in his ears. He doesn’t seem concerned over the fact that he’s holding his own heart in his hands, though, or that it’s still beating._

Offer up your beating heart for the glory of mankind.

_The words ring in the air around him, repeating themselves on a loop._

Offer up your beating heart for the glory of mankind.

Your beating heart.

For the glory of mankind.

Of mankind.

_A sense of pain suddenly overwhelms Armin, and he falls to his knees, still carefully clutching his heart in his hands. The blood soaks though the knees of his pants, but he doesn’t care. The pain spreads from his chest to his head to the rest of his body, and he gasps for breath only to find his lungs filling with blood. He’s drowning in a sea of red, and just as his hands start to fall, right before his heart slips from his grasp, a dark figure approaches him and picks the beating organ up._

You have sworn your life to helping mankind. You have offered up your beating heart.

_The voice echoes around Armin’s head, and right before he falls into unconsciousness the figure kneels beside him. Its voice is quiet and clear, completely unlike how Armin thought it would sound. But what it says instills a strange feeling in him; one of fear, and a foreboding sorrow._

Those who cannot sacrifice anything can never hope to change the world.

 

* * *

 

Armin’s eyes flew open, and he found himself sprawled on the floor of his bedroom, his blanket tangled around his feet. Gasping, he sat up, his breaths coming short and fast. There was an ache in his chest, but when he looked down he was fine; there was no gaping hole, there was no blood anywhere. Still, he rubbed his hands together, as if he were washing them of any red residue.

It wasn’t until he stood up and buried his face in his hands that he realized he’d been crying. There were tears staining his cheeks, and he furiously wiped them away. Glancing at his clock, he saw it was only 6am; he didn’t have to be awake for another hour. With a huge sigh he fell onto his bed, wrapping his blanket around himself and pulling it over his face.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the day, Armin walked around with a horrible feeling in his stomach, like something horrific was going to happen. He jumped at every little thing, and kept checking to make sure his chest was still intact and that his hands were clean. Mikasa and Eren asked him if he was okay several times, and he just nodded, saying he was simply tired.

Still, the way he was acting even confused him; he’d had nightmares before, but they never affected him like this. Even when he was much younger, he was able to recognize that dreams were dreams; he could always easily move on from them, and they never lingered in his mind. Because all they were were pictures and words conjured up by his subconscious and he knew this, he always knew this.

But now these meaningless pictures were tearing him apart. All he could think of, over and over again, was the image of his own heart bleeding in his hands. He ended up doodling the scene on a piece of paper in one of his notebooks during class, but viciously scribbled it out before anyone could notice.

When the school day was finally over, he hurried home off the bus as fast as he could, despite Eren asking if he wanted to hang out. He ignored the confused looks on both his friends’ faces as he all but ran to his house. Once inside, he shut himself away in his room and sat, drawing the bloodied and beating heart over and over again, until the illustrations went from crude chicken-scratch to something actually recognizable as the gruesome and macabre scene it was.

Then, he crumpled the piece of paper up and shoved it away in a drawer, beneath books and pencils and random junk, hoping he’d never have to see it again. Still, the nightmare stuck with him for several weeks, until he managed to push it the back of his mind. He didn’t experience any more like it, though, which he was more than thankful for. Even so, he had trouble sleeping, for fear that he would have another.

 

* * *

 

Soon after he turned 13, Armin realized he hated being a teenager. The way books and TV shows and movies made it seem was absolutely nothing like it actually was. Everyone was suddenly obsessed with other genders and more than a little overemotional. Eren became even more short-tempered and mopey, and even the level-headed Mikasa started to get annoyed more easily; by the end of seventh grade, Armin had lost count of the times she’d walked away from him and Eren, muttering about them being stupid boys.

Armin, however, just became more quiet and reserved. He found that he only really enjoyed the company of Mikasa and Eren, and even then preferred being alone. Some of that stemmed from the fact, no matter who he talked to, they always ended up talking about relationships and who liked who and who was cute or good-looking and who wasn’t. Up until right before the summer between seventh and eighth grade, Mikasa and Eren had been Armin’s escape from all that, but then Mikasa started talking about how Jean had a crush on her.

“What?!” Eren cried, flopping off the bean bag onto his bedroom floor to face her, his eyes wide and his expression angry. “That horse-faced idiot likes you?! You better not start dating him!”

Mikasa actually laughed at that, glancing up from the book she was reading to give Eren one of her “you have got to be kidding me” looks. “Not that I think he’s horrible or anything,” she said, shrugging. “It’s just that I’d hardly call any of the hand-holding and sneaking kisses in the hallways that goes on at school dating. And you know that’s what would happen if Jean and I ‘dated’, because we’re thirteen and none of us have a job and therefore no money for actual dates.” She continued, air quoting the word dated.

Eren scowled at the ground, and Armin smirked; Mikasa was more often than not a reasonable god amongst men. She always managed to knock some sense into Eren, or at least point out how stupid some of the things he said were.

“As long as you don’t actually like that asshole…” he muttered, rolling back onto the bean bag and burying his face in his DS.

After that, Eren started talking more and more about the girls in their school, though normally only when Mikasa wasn’t around so she couldn’t tell him how annoying he was being. Armin never really understood everyone else’s obsession with other genders, but he just went with it; sometimes it was annoying, yes, but he never really had to add to the conversation. It was only when people asked for his input that he drew a blank, and would only answer with a simple, “I don’t know.”

Eren, however, constantly asked what he thought about this girl or that, and was never very happy with his short responses to avoid actually answering because, in all honesty, Armin had no idea what to think.

 

* * *

 

When summer came around, Mikasa was, for once, the one to go away. She had some sort of family reunion to go to at Dinseyland, which she was dreading because, as she put it, her “entire family was full of boring and stuck-up old people and their boring and stuck-up children”.

This meant that Eren and Armin were left trying to figure out what to do by themselves. Mikasa had always been good with ideas on what to do, and she was constantly coming up with new ones. Without her, Eren and Armin mostly found themselves in Eren’s room, playing video games, which Armin always lost.

“You are literally the worst Mario Kart player I’ve ever seen,” Eren said, marveling at how Armin had managed to complete an entire lap backwards without realizing. “Have you always been this bad? I feel like you were better the last time we played…”

“Well it’s been a long time since I played this game,” Armin said, watching as he hit one of the multi-coloured cubes. The small square that appeared in the corner spun until it landed on one of the power-ups; thankfully for Armin, that turned out to be Bullet Bill. “Maybe I’ll finally get somewhere…” he muttered as the power-up dragged him along the course. “This map is stupid anyways.” He added quickly when he landed nowhere near everyone else.

Eren laughed at that. “Oh, please, you just suck and don’t wanna admit it.” He said, standing up to cheer as he crossed the finish line in first place. “Haha, yes! Third time in a row!”

“What?! You’re already finished?!” Armin cried, staring at the screen. “I’m not even done my second lap!”

“That’s what happens when you _suck_ ,” Eren said, turning to grin at Armin, who glared at him as his kart slowed to a stop; everyone else had passed the finish line, leaving him stranded in the water by a giant red turtle shell. “Looks like you finished with a grand to--,”

Eren was cut off in his taunting by his mother yelling up the stairs to him. “Eren! Eren, _komm her_!”

Groaning, Eren went over to his door, throwing it open. “What is it?” he called back to her.

“ _Komm her_!” Carla repeated, and Armin flinched; she sounded more than a little annoyed at something. “ _Es sei denn, du sterben willst!_ ” Even though he couldn’t understand what she was saying, it sounded rather threatening.

“Oh my God, Mutti!” Eren yelled, turning to give Armin an exasperated look before walking out and down the stairs. “ _Beruhige dich!_ Geez…”

Once Eren disappeared, Armin could no longer hear any of the conversation, though he had no idea what it was about in the first place. However, a few minutes later, after looking through all the maps for the next race, he heard Eren’s mother yell something at him, and then Eren yelled back, until they were in a full-fledged argument, screaming what Armin presumed to be insults back and forth.

“ _Ich weiß nicht, warum du eine solche Haltung haben jetzt!_ _Aber alles, was du jemals tun ist, klagen und stöhnen und wütend!_ ”

“ _Du gehst immer geradeaus schrie mich an! Wenn du mich fragen, um etwas, das man immer schreien mich an, es zu tun_!”

“ _Es spielt keine Rolle, ob ich schreien du bist oder nicht, erhaltst du immer wütend auf mich für du auffordert, die einfachsten Dinge zu tun!_ ”

Armin got up and quietly closed the door, before sitting back down and looking over Eren’s bookshelf. A good majority of the books were in German, even more of which were children’s stories that he had yet to get rid of. Despite Eren’s very apparent lack of interest in reading, he still always asked Armin about the books he was reading at the time, and seemed generally curious about it. Smiling a bit, Armin took one of the children’s books off the shelf and started flipping through it, trying to decipher what was going on from a few recognizable words here and there and the illustrations.

Only a few pages into the book, Armin was horribly disturbed. The book depicted pictures of kids accidentally setting themselves on fire, or starving to death for not eating their supper, or even being dumped in a giant inkwell by an old man. There was even a story with a little boy getting his thumbs cut off. Armin had almost gotten through the entire book when Eren came back, barely managing not to slam the door behind him.

“What was that all about?” Armin asked, looking up at his friend. Eren opened his mouth to start explaining, an angry expression on his face, but stopped when he saw the book in Armin’s hands. He immediately burst out laughing, his face changing drastically, going over and sitting by his friend.

“Oh my god, Armin, out of all the books you could have chosen, you picked _that one_?” he asked, taking the book from the other boy’s hands.

“What kind of children’s book is that anyways?” Armin asked. “It’s horrifying.”

“It used to give me nightmares,” Eren said, flipping through the book. “It was my grandpa’s when he was a kid, and he would read it to my dad, who decided to read it to me. I always cried. _Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben_ was probably my least favourite; that’s the one where the boys are dunked into an ink well. Nikolas just scared the crap out of me.”

“Why does he dump them in the ink well?” Armin asked, looking over at the page Eren had turned to that depicted the large bearded man dipping the three boys into the ink. He could easily see why a small kid would be scared of the giant. “And why have I never heard of this?

“They were making fun of this kid for being black,” Eren explained, turning to the first page of the story, where the three boys could be seen pointing and laughing at a dark-skinned boy carrying an umbrella. “My dad would read it to be at night, and I normally forgot about it by the morning. I don’t know how... All these stories are supposed to teach you lessons, but they were always just really creepy. Like why would you cut off a kid’s thumb because he kept sucking it? Good God.”

Armin laughed at that, and Eren leaned closer to him to show him another picture. Armin, for some reason he didn’t really understand or like, felt his face flare up, and tried to scoot away without his friend noticing. As Eren was explaining what was going on in the story he looked up at Armin, and paused.

“Geez, Armin your face is super red,” he said, leaning back at a bit. Armin let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in as Eren moved away, and resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. “It looks your head’s gonna blow up!”

“I, uh... You know, I should probably be getting home,” Armin said, scrambling to get up, horribly aware of how terrible his excuse was. “It’s almost supper time, and my grandpa will be wondering where I am...”

“What? He knows you’re here Armin; you’re always here!” Eren said, raising an eyebrow as the other boy quickly grabbed his hoodie and pulled it on.

“Well I have some stuff to do...” Armin muttered quietly. “Chores and... stuff. Bye!”

He practically ran out of Eren’s room and downstairs, where he pulled on his shoes without saying goodbye to Carla, and hurried outside and home. Once there, he collapsed onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow.

“What the hell, Armin. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell.” He repeated the question to himself over and over again, until he was almost screaming into the fabric. Taking a deep breath and turning onto his back, he let out a groan. “Something’s wrong with me. Something is so totally wrong with me.”

_It was just Eren... We’ve been friends for over eight years. I’ve never acted like that. It was like..._

Taking his pillow, he buried his face in it again, letting out a loud, unhappy moan.

 

* * *

 

Armin knew he could only avoid Eren until the next day. He had no idea what he’d say to him, or what he’d do. Maybe everything would be fine. Maybe it would be like it’s always been. Maybe the day before was just some weird incident, and nothing would happen. However, as soon as Armin saw Eren standing on his front porch after, his face flared up again just remembering the event.

“Um... I... Sorry about yesterday,” Armin managed to say. “It was... really weird.”

Eren, to Armin’s surprise, shrugged. “As long as you’re okay,” he said, before eyeing his friend strangely. “You are okay, right?”

 _Oh God, no I am not._ Armin thought, but simply nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He said, stepping out of the way so Eren could come inside. “Anyways, what do you wanna do today?”

 

* * *

 

The rest of the summer until Mikasa got back progressed calmly. Armin and Eren spent their time playing video games and walking around the forest near their neighbourhood. However, Armin found himself being more self-conscious around Eren; he would always blush when he looked at him, and would lie awake thinking about why it was all happening. Then, one night, it hit him.

He had big stupid crush on his best friend of eight years. And the worst part was it had just appeared out of nowhere; materialised from thin air. One day, they were best friends, and the next, Armin could barely look at him without blushing like the stupid 13-year-old he was.

The minute he realised this he nearly fell out of bed, and ended up lying there the rest of the night, staring at his ceiling, trying not to cry because everything was starting to make such perfect sense in the most horrible way.

 

* * *

 

“When did your little crush on Eren start?”

Armin looked over at Mikasa, his eyes widening. “I... what?”

“You heard me,” she repeated, resting her elbow on the cafeteria table. It was the second week of eighth grade, and Eren had gone off to get something from his locker—probably homework he hadn’t done yet. “And don’t even try to deny it, Armin. I know you, and you totally have a crush on Eren.”

“Mikasa!” Armin cried, burying his face in his hands, before muttering, “How did you know?”

“You’re not that hard to read,” she explained, though she patted his arm sympathetically.

“Please don’t tell him.”

“I won’t, I promise. That’s something you have to do.”

Armin peeked through his hands just to give her another horrified look. “I’m never doing that!” he said. “No, no, no, no! Never. Ever.”

Mikasa shrugged, glancing over at the doorway as Eren walked in. “You can do whatever you want,” she said, before turning her attention back to her lunch.

 

* * *

 

Armin sat against the back wall of the school, holding his hand up to his bleeding nose. He kept his eyes focused on the ground as the laughing group of kids walked away, still throwing insults at him even though they’d gotten him on the ground and bleeding. He didn’t get up even when they rounded a corner and disappeared, instead slumping into a ball, resting his forehead on his arms, ignoring the blood still dripping from his nose.

He hated how useless he was. He hated how he always just let people step all over him. He hated that the last time he’d really stood up for himself was years ago, and he was still too scarred and unhappy to talk about it. There was always someone in his life to torment him, whether it be his parents or kids at school. Scowling at the ground, he picked up a rock and chucked it, wiping his nose and smearing the blood across his cheek.

“Armin, oh my god, what happened?”

He looked up to see Mikasa and Eren standing beside him, the former looking concerned, and the latter looking murderous.

“Why is your nose bleeding?” Mikasa asked, kneeling down beside him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Armin said, avoiding looking at either of them.

“We couldn’t find you, and got worried.” Mikasa explained, taking a Kleenex out of her bag and handing it to him.

“Did somebody do that to you?” Eren asked. “Who was it? I’ll find them and kill them!”

Mikasa sighed, before helping Armin up and onto his feet. “Eren, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “We should just go and tell the principal or something, not go and _kill_ people.”

“Well I’m not going to _kill_ them, Mikasa,” Eren scoffed, as if she was the one being ridiculous. “I’ll just come close to it. So who--,”

He was cut off by the group of boys coming back around the corner, talking loudly at something. However, they paused when they saw Armin standing with Mikasa and Eren.

“Did they do it?” Eren asked, and Armin nodded quietly. He immediately regretted it, though, because as soon as he said it Eren was charging towards the group, yelling obscenities at them. Within seconds there was an all-out fight, with Eren throwing punches and kicking every which way. Before it could get too out of hand, however, and right before Mikasa was about to go break it up, a teacher came walking out of the building, caught sight of the scene in front of her, and went to stop it.

Mikasa and Armin simply watched as Eren and the other boys were dragged away, back into the building.

“He’s in so much trouble,” Mikasa said, before taking Armin’s hand and following Eren into the school.

 

* * *

 

Eren was suspended for three days, and the school suggested he see the guidance councillor every week, starting after the end of his suspension, to deal with his anger issues. His parents agreed to the counselling, and grounded him for a month; he couldn’t leave the house except for school or if they were with him. Even when he explained why he’d done what he’d done, they insisted that it was wrong, and he could have handled it in a much better way.

This meant that the only time Armin really saw Eren was during school, and in some ways that was a relief. Still, Mikasa enjoyed tormenting him about it, giving him strange looks whenever he was around Eren. She never said anything about it, though, not to Armin and not to Eren. She never actually brought the topic back up again, even though Armin knew she wanted to talk about it, she was waiting for him to bring it up.

When Eren got back to school and started seeing the guidance councillor regularly, he was constantly complaining about it; how boring and stupid and pointless it was. No matter what he told anyone, however, his parents insisted on the meetings, and he continued to spend most of his time whining to Armin and Mikasa about the dumb things the councillor had told him to do.

 

* * *

 

Summer was a much needed break from Eren’s griping and the torment Armin always faced. Eren spent the first few weeks in Germany, during which Armin was constantly with Mikasa. She seemed like she wanted to talk about his crush on Eren more than anything, which she hadn’t said a word about since September. Finally, one day while they were trying to climb a tree in the forest, she caved.

“Hey, Armin,” she said, stepping up and onto a higher branch, glancing up at her friend, who was further up than she was. He looked down at her, wrapping his arms around a branch and resting his chin on it.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Are you gay?”

Armin blinked at her. “What? Am I... am I gay?”

Mikasa shrugged, which probably wasn’t very smart as she almost fell off her branch as a result. Regaining her balance, she continued, “Well, you have a crush on Eren, right? So you’re probably not straight.”

“I... I don’t really know.” Armin said. He’d thought about it before, and it did seem to make sense to him; he just didn’t want it to be true. Because all his life he’d heard it used as an insult, used to attack people and make them feel horrible about themselves. It had been used against him more times than he could count, in every possible way it could be used.

“Oh, okay,” Mikasa said, about to continue climbing before pausing. “You know, Armin, if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m always here.”

Armin gave her a small smile. “Thanks, Mikasa.”

 

* * *

 

“Armin! Is that you?”

Armin turned around at the sound of his name to see a girl with long brown hair running towards him, a wide smile on her face. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her before, but she looked very familiar. Then, it hit him.

“Sasha?!”

“Hi!” Sasha cried, throwing her arms around him. “Oh my gosh, it’s been _so long_!”

“Yeah, uh, what, seven years?” Armin asked, letting out a choked gasp as she practically crushed him to death.

“It’s great to see you!” Finally letting go, Armin was able to catch his breath as Sasha bounced around him, grinning widely. “Where’re Eren and Mikasa? They still live here, right?”

“Yeah, they do,” Armin said, nodding. “I’m not sure where they are right now, though. Uh, why are you back here? I thought you moved to Florida.”

Sasha nodded. “Yeah, but then my parents got divorced,” she explained. “My mom decided to move back here, and she took me with her. I have to say, I missed it! Florida’s way too hot for me.”

They walked and talked for a while, catching up. They’d lost contact somewhere around fourth or fifth grade, so they had no idea what had happened with each other since then. Sasha talked about the friends she had in Florida, and Armin talked about what he, Eren, and Mikasa had been up to. After a while they found Eren and Mikasa, sitting on a bench outside the school. They were both equally surprised, but happy, to see Sasha again.

 

* * *

 

A few months after the start of ninth grade, Armin was woken up in the middle of the night by his grandfather.

“Armin, Armin. Are you okay? Armin, wake up.”

“What? What is it, Grandpa?” Armin asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. His face was wet, and when he blinked a tear rolled down his cheek; he’d been crying.

“You were screaming,” his grandfather explained, his expression obviously a worried one, even in the low light. “You kept thrashing around, and you were sobbing about something. Did you have a nightmare?”

Despite what his grandfather said, Armin couldn’t remember if he’d had a nightmare or not; his mind was blank. “I... I don’t know.” He said.

“Are you gonna by okay?”

Armin nodded. “I think so...” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” his grandfather said; he seemed conflicted over whether or not he should stay.

“Go back to bed, Grandpa,” Armin said. “I’m gonna be fine.”

His grandfather nodded, and slowly got up, shuffling out of the room. By the door he paused, looking back at his grandson. “If you need anything, call me.”

“I will,” Armin promised, lying back down as his grandfather closed the door. He lay there, wide awake, for several minutes, trying to remember what he’d been dreaming about. As soon as he closed his eyes, ready to give up and go to sleep, it all came rushing back to him:

 _He was flying through the air. There was blood everywhere; God, so much blood. People were dying left and right, grabbed out of the air by these... these things. These giant, monstrous creatures, and Armin realized with horror that they were_ eating _people. He could hear the sound of bones crushing and metal slicing through meat, but everyone was dying. They were all dying, and he couldn’t do anything to help them. Right when he knew it was about to end, that he was going to die, Eren was there. He saved him, but died in return. And Armin just watched. He watched his best friend get eaten, swallowed alive. Just_ watched. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found at my Tumblr:  
> http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting (it's in there somewhere just keep looking)  
> And on FF.net:  
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes all Armin can do is blame himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, new chapter! I wish i'd gotten it out sooner, but i'm really slow at writing (aka lazy). i've been on break, too, so there's really no excuse. aghhhh  
> Anyways, thanks to everyone who's commented on this and given kudos. You're all amaaaazing!

_We’re all fighting growing old._

_We’re all fighting growing old_

_In the hopes_

_Of a few minutes more._

_To get on St. Peter’s list,_

_But you need to lower your standards._

_‘Cause it’s never getting any better than this._

_-Rat a Tat_ , Fall Out Boy

 

* * *

 

“Armin, are you okay?”

Armin looked up from the empty spot on the table he’d been staring at, blinking away the tears he didn’t know had been building up in his eyes. He was sitting in the cafeteria with Mikasa and Eren, at their usual table; his tray of food sat in front of him, untouched.

“You looked like you were going to start crying,” Mikasa said, looking concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Armin shook his head, even though that was a lie; there were so many things wrong at the moment. The night before, he’d had another horrible nightmare. He didn’t remember much of it, like he did with the others, but when he woke up there were all these names and faces floating around his mind; Thomas Wagner, Mina Carolina, Millius Zermusky, Nack Teaz... And they were all dead. All eaten by those monsters from his dreams.

Like Eren.

Whenever Armin looked at his friend, all he felt was guilt. It had only been a dream, but Armin couldn’t help but feel like what happened was his fault. And no matter how many times he told himself that it wasn’t real, that it hadn’t actually happened, the feeling didn’t go away.

And those faces; those names. Whenever he thought of them the same guilt-ridden feeling rose up and threatened to swallow him whole. He’d lived, and they hadn’t. He knew their names, and he knew their faces, but he didn’t know who they were. Not like he knew who Eren was. So why did he feel the same about them dying? They were just images, fake people conjured up to fill that horrific dream world.

But they felt real. They felt like they were actual people he had known and talked to and laughed with.

He didn’t tell Mikasa and Eren any of this though. They were his two best friends in the world, but he felt like he should keep the dreams to himself; he knew they’d just worry, and he hated how he always seemed like a burden to them.

“I’m fine.” He said, trying to ignore the looks Mikasa kept giving him. She always knew when he was lying, and never rested until she figured out the truth. “Really; I’m fine.”

“Are you stressing out over schoolwork?” Eren asked. “Because I told you what to do when you’re stressing about schoolwork.”

“It’s nothing,” Armin insisted. Thankfully, the bell rang, and he stood up, avoiding Mikasa’s stares. He hurried from the cafeteria as fast as he could, mumbling some excuse about needing to get something from his locker. Not even a few seconds later, Mikasa was by his side.

“Armin, is this about that thing with Eren?” she asked.

Armin shook his head. “No, it’s not,” he said, stopping and looking at his friend. “It’s nothing, Mikasa; really. I’m fine.”

She didn’t follow him when he walked away, but he could feel her staring at him until he rounded a corner and disappeared.

 

* * *

 

That night, Armin lay on the floor of his bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. Pieces of paper were scattered around him, covered in drawings of faces and scribbled names that had been scratched out and rewritten several times. The pictures weren’t very well drawn, but there were a few discernible features; a boy with slicked back hair, another with short, light-coloured hair, a girl with dark pigtails. The names labelling who the faces were were the ones from his dream; the ones belonging to the people who had died.

Groaning, Armin brought his hands up to his face, rubbing his eyes. He couldn’t understand why these dreams were affecting him like they were. After the most recent one he realized they were all connected, but he didn’t know where the idea of them had come from, or what had stuck it in his mind. They all took place in the same horrifyingly twisted world, though, that instilled more fear and terror in him than other nightmares had.

Grabbing his phone, Armin held it in front of him, seeing that he’d gotten at least a dozen messages in the past few hours; there were a few from Mikasa, several from Eren, and even one from Sasha, which surprised him. A few weeks after Sasha got back, she found other friends and slowly started to migrate over to them. Armin still talked to her occasionally, in the few classes they shared, but Mikasa and Sasha still got together every now and then, which was evident in the messages from the two of them.

Clicking on the first one from Mikasa, he quickly scanned through them.

**From: Mikasa**

**Armin somethings definitely wrong with you even Sasha knows it. She says you seemed off today in class**

**From: Mikasa**

**Please tell me I’m worried about you. Is it about Eren or something like that if it is you can tell me and even if it isn’t please talk to me about it**

**From: Mikasa**

**And don’t even lie and say you’re okay you were almost crying at lunch today and I know you Armin you wouldn’t just cry like that**

**From: Sasha**

**armin are u okay u looked awful in math and mikasa says u were weird at lunch**

He stopped there, without even looking at the texts from Eren. Putting his phone back on the ground, Armin pushed it into a corner with his foot. He didn’t feel like replying to anybody, and he didn’t know what he’d say anyway. Instead, he slowly got up and crawled into bed, burying his face in his pillow.

 

* * *

 

Armin never really explained to Mikasa, Eren, or Sasha why he had acted like he did, but he made sure to seem more like himself so as not to worry them. This meant he had to make it look like he was perfectly fine; he had to smile and laugh and carry on with his life. Only a few weeks after the nightmare, though, it did become easier. The dream faded to the back of the mind, where he locked it away.

While he didn’t have any more nightmares, his sleep was still full of images of that terrible world; they were short snippets of a life spent flying through the air, climbing huge walls and wondering how everything can keep moving on with all that’s happened. There were pictures, too, that floated through his mind in this dream world; pictures of vast plains of sand and fields of lava and giant bodies of water. Deserts and volcanoes and oceans.

Each time Armin woke up from one of those dreams, he would know more names, more faces. He learned that the creatures that overran the world were called Titans, but that everything about them was shrouded in mystery. He would spend hours drawing the scenes he saw, until his notebooks and desk drawers were full of loose pieces of paper covered in sketches of random faces, some human and some not, and drawings of giant walls that seemed to touch the sky.

He still didn’t understand what these dreams were really about, or why he was having them, but he chose not to dwell on it too much; as long as he wasn’t having nightmares.

 

* * *

 

When summer came, Armin spent much of his time drawing. He found that he really enjoyed doing it, and the more he drew the better he got. Eren was away for most of the summer again, much longer than he had been the last time, because of some family event. Armin and Mikasa, like the year before, spent most of their summer together, though instead of wandering the forest they hid out in Mikasa’s basement.

“Have you ever seen this movie?” Mikasa asked, holding up a DVD case. Armin glanced up from the drawing he was working on just quick enough to read the title, and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Why, is it good?”

“It’s pretty funny,” Mikasa said, opening up the case and inspecting the disc. “I liked it, at least. Do you wanna watch it?”

Armin shrugged. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “We don’t have anything better to do.” Picking up his eraser, he carefully erased a wayward line from his drawing; it was a scene from one of his more recent dreams. A small group of people on horses were looking up at a forest of giant trees; beside them, an unkempt cobblestone road led up to an old abandoned building, before disappearing into the forest.

“Well, you seem very focused on that drawing,” Mikasa said, popping the disc into the DVD player before getting up and walking over to Armin. Leaning towards him to get a better view of the paper, she asked, “What are you drawing anyway?”

“It’s a forest,” Armin explained, hoping she wouldn’t ask too many questions, mostly because he didn’t know how he’d answer most of them. A part of him wanted to tell Mikasa and Eren about the dreams, but another part was convinced that was a bad idea; he was scared of how they’d react, and he was worried he was just blowing things out of proportion. They were just dreams.

“Are those horses?” Mikasa asked. “Jesus, those are some giant trees.”

Armin grinned, shrugging. “There can be trees this big,” he said, before pausing. “Well, maybe not this big, but there are some pretty tall trees out there. Like giant sequoias.”

“I guess so,” Mikasa said, sitting down beside Armin. “Who are they?” She motioned to the people on the horses.

Armin answered quickly, “No one really.” This was actually the truth; the figures were just random people. He hadn’t drawn them with anyone in mind. “But anyways, are we going to watch this movie?”

Mikasa nodded, grabbing the remote and pressing play. Thankful that the conversation was over, Armin carefully placed the paper and his pencil on the coffee table before sitting back to watch the movie. Soon after Mikasa had fast-forwarded through all the commercials, though, and the title of the movie had flashed across the screen, Armin realized with horror that he’d somehow agreed to watch a romantic comedy.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, turning to face Mikasa. “No. We are not watching this. We are picking another movie.”

Mikasa just smirked at him. “Too late, you already agreed to this one,” she said, trying to hide her amusement at Armin’s horror. “That’s what you get for drawing giant trees instead of paying attention.”

“Mik, no,” Armin begged. “This is going to be torture. Don’t make me sit through this.”

“If you watch this movie with me I’ll sit and watch whatever movie you want after,” Mikasa said, giving him one of her small smiles. “Please?”

Armin sighed, scowling slightly at his friend. “Fine,” he muttered.

They settled into silence then. Armin didn’t complain again, even when the movie got more and more boring. When they were about an hour in, he started to fall asleep, his head against the arm rest beside him.

 

* * *

 

_“Armin!”_

_Somebody was calling his name, yelling for him to come back. But there was no point. All he heard was the sound of wires flying through the air and wind rushing in his ears. He didn’t care; he wouldn’t go back. There was blood staining the streets and walls of the buildings beneath him, but no bodies; Armin didn’t want to think about what had happened to them._

This is hell.

_His own voice echoed through his mind as horrific scenes replayed themselves in his memory. Watching his comrades die in front him. Watching Eren die in his place._

No. This has always been hell. A world where the strong devour the weak. And Eren and Mikasa... They always tried to be strong. Why couldn’t I be like them?

_There was the sound of metal against stone; his hook had missed its target, and suddenly he was falling, hitting the ground with a thud. He buried his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut as tears streamed down his face._

Because of me, Eren...

_Somebody was crying behind him. Turning, he saw a girl with straight red hair leaning over a mutilated body—Hannah. She was furiously pumping her fists against the body’s chest, before moving and blowing air into its mouth. Getting up and moving closer, he saw that the body—Franz’s body—was missing its bottom half. Blood was pooled beneath him, and still Hannah kept trying to save him. She screamed and begged Armin to help her, but there was no point._

_“Please, stop,” Armin whispered, covering his face with his hand. “There’s no point. So stop.”_

* * *

_He was sitting on a rooftop, his back against a wall. Mikasa was in front of him, her face emotionless. He was listing off names, ones that he immediately recognized; Thomas Wagner, Mina Carolina, Nack Teaz, Millius Zermusky... Eren Jaeger._

_They’re all dead and it’s his fault._ Eren’s _dead and it’s all because of him._

_“I’m sorry, Mikasa,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “He died for me... I couldn’t do anything! I’m so sorry...”_

* * *

 

The first thing Armin saw when he woke up were Mikasa’s eyes, staring at him, full of concern. She was leaning over him, and it took him a few seconds to realize he was curled up on the couch in her basement, not sitting on a roof, listing off the names of the dead.

Once she saw that he was awake, Mikasa sat back down, hugging her knees to her chest. “You were crying,” she said, her voice quiet. “And you kept muttering. You were saying something was all your fault, and then you wouldn’t stop apologizing... You said my name, too. And Eren’s, and a few I didn’t recognize.”

Silence. Armin slowly sat up, glancing at the TV; there was a different movie on, but Mikasa had paused it. Some sort of cartoon. Looking over at Mikasa, he saw that she was watching him, her expression intense.

“What was it about?” she asked. “It was a nightmare, right?”

Armin nodded. “I... It’s... really confusing,” he said, running his hands over his face. “I’ve had nightmares like it before.”

“Like, recurring nightmares?” Mikasa asked.

“Kind of...” Armin said, thinking back to the other nightmares he’d had—seeing all those people die, watching all that blood being splattered on the ground. Not being able to do anything as Eren was eaten alive. He let out a chocked sob, burying his face in his arms; Mikasa was there in a second, wrapping herself around him and holding him tight.

“Eren... he died.” Armin whispered, trying to get rid of the images in his mind. He’d managed to keep them at bay for so long, and now they were resurfacing again. “It was all my fault.” He couldn’t breathe; all this fear and panic rose up in his throat, and he felt like screaming. The nightmares felt real, even though he knew they weren’t; he was sitting with Mikasa in her basement, and everything was okay. There were no Titans, and there never had been. Nobody was dead.  

Mikasa seemed to tense up when he said that Eren had died, but she didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she kept comforting him as best as she could, even though she had no idea what was going on in his mind. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she told him, her voice nothing but a soft murmur. “Everything’s alright, Armin. Eren’s not dead. Everyone’s perfectly fine.”

They fell into silence then. After a while, Mikasa unpaused whatever movie she had started playing, and Armin listened, his face still buried in her shoulder, until there were no more thoughts of Titans roaming in his mind.

 

* * *

 

The day before Eren got back, two weeks after the incident with the nightmare, Armin and Mikasa sat outside in his backyard. His grandfather had kicked them out of the house, saying they were spending too much time inside, so they had settled themselves underneath the old crab apple tree back there. Mikasa currently had her nose buried in a book; some Meg Cabot title, which Armin had never really understood the appeal of. Mikasa insisted that, while they definitely weren’t the best books around, some of them weren’t half bad; she had then proceeded to explain the entire plot of _Abandon_ to him, which he had only sort of paid attention to.

Glancing over at her, he reached up and plucked one of the crab apples off a branch, before tossing it at her. It hit the back of her book, and rolled off into the muddy creek that surrounded the tree. When she glared over the book at him, he simply grinned innocently.

“What was that for?” she asked, picking a crab apple up off the ground and chucking it at him. He narrowly managed to dodge it, watching it hit the fence behind him instead.

“You’re getting rusty,” Armin commented. When they were younger, Mikasa had been able to hit both him and Eren with one crab apple.

“I wasn’t trying,” Mikasa mumbled, turning her attention back to her book.

“D’you remember when Eren ate like five of these in a row?” Armin asked, finding another crap apple and tossing it around in his hands. “I’m surprised he didn’t throw up afterwards. They taste so awful.”

Mikasa smirked slightly at the memory. “I’m surprised he didn’t accidently eat a worm.”

Armin laughed, throwing the crap apple up into the air before catching it. Everything became quiet again, the only sounds filling the air around them being Mikasa turning the page and the apple slapping against Armin’s skin each time he caught it. A few minutes later, Armin spoke up again, breaking the silence.

“Do you think it’s stupid that I still like him?” he asked, letting the apple fall back onto the ground.

Mikasa looked over at him. “Eren?” Armin nodded, and she continued. “What do you mean?”

“Well he’s never going to like me back,” he said. He wasn’t really sure where the whole revelation came from, but he’d been thinking about it for a while. “And I haven’t even been trying to get over him. Do you think I should?”

“Will not having a crush on him make you happier?” Mikasa asked.

Armin thought about it for a while. For over a year now, he hadn’t even been able to sit close to Eren without blushing, his face turning the colour of a tomato. He was always distracted around him, even when he tried his hardest not to be. But how do you get over a crush, especially one on someone you see on a daily basis?

“It would,” he concluded, sighing. Any relationship with Eren besides the one they had right now was hopeless. “I just... need to figure out how to do that.”

“However you do it, I’ll be here to help,” Mikasa promised, giving him a small smile.

“Thanks, Mik.”

Mikasa paused for a few seconds. “Are you gonna tell him that you’re gay?” she asked.

Armin nodded. “I... want to,” he said. “I’ll probably do it before school starts.”

“Okay, good,” Mikasa said. “He told me a while ago that you were acting weird around him. I think he knows you’re hiding something. Telling him will probably make him feel better.”

“It’ll make me feel better, too,” Armin said with a smile. He knew Eren wouldn’t care that he was gay, and honestly wished he hadn’t waited so long to decide to tell him.

 

* * *

 

When Eren got back, there was less than two weeks left until the start of school. By the time they were in the last week, Armin still hadn’t told him he was gay, and Mikasa was constantly giving him looks that asked “well, what are you waiting for”.

Honestly, Armin didn’t know what he was waiting for; he kept telling himself that there just hadn’t been a good time to bring it up yet, but there had been. He was just stupidly nervous for no reason at all. He’d known Eren for most of his life; there shouldn’t be any reason for him to be worried.

Yet there he was, sitting on the bean bag in Eren’s room, barely even paying attention as his friend rambled on about something one of his relatives had done while they were in Germany. He could tell him now; it was a perfect opportunity. Once Eren finished his story, and there would be a pause as he thought of something else to say. Then Armin could tell him.

As if on cue, Eren stopped talking, chuckling to himself. Armin laughed quietly, though he wasn’t too sure what he was laughing at. Still, nobody was talking. If he didn’t tell him now Mikasa would ask about it, and he’d have to explain why he hadn’t done it yet.

“Uh, Eren,” he said softly, speaking before the other boy could jump in with another story. “I, um... I need to tell you something.”

Eren looked at him, an expression of confusion and concern on his face. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re not dying or anything, are you?”

“N-No,” Armin said quickly, his eyes darting around the room, looking anywhere but at Eren. “It’s nothing like that; I’m fine. I just... Um... I... Urgh!” Burying his face in his hands, Armin could feel the blush spreading across his face. He was so hopeless! He couldn’t even form complete sentences.

“Armin?” Eren moved closer to the blond. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Hmmg.”

“Uh... What?” Eren leaned closer to Armin, straining to hear what he was saying, his voice muffled by his hands.

“Hm guh.”

“Armin, you’re gonna have to speak clearer. Move your hands away from your face.”

Slowly, Armin moved his hands, balling them into fists on his knees. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m gay.”

There was a pause. Eren blinked a few times, and Armin could barely even look at him.

“You were that nervous to tell me?” Eren almost sounded a little hurt.

Armin nodded. “I’m sorry...” he said quietly, staring at the ground. “I just... I didn’t know how to tell you. I wish I’d done it sooner.”

Eren smiled at him. “It’s fine,” he said. “Is that why you were acting weird for the past little while?”

“Yeah,” Armin said. “That was... a big part of it.”

“Well I’m glad you told me,” Eren said, leaning back against his bed. “Does Mikasa know?”

Armin grinned slightly. “I didn’t even have to tell her...” he mumbled. “She figured it out on her own.”

Eren laughed. “That doesn’t really surprise me at all.”

 

* * *

 

About a month after the start of tenth grade, Armin is woken up in the middle of the night by his phone beeping. Ever since the nightmare at Mikasa’s house, the horrific dreams had become a regular occurrence. He rarely made it a week without having one, and the peaceful dreams had all but disappeared. That night had been blissfully void of nightmares, unlike the night before, and he was hoping to catch up on some sleep. It was Friday, which meant he could sleep in, and as he unlocked his phone it seemed like that would prove to be a blessing.

There were seven texts from Eren lighting up the screen. Armin barely even registered what they said until he opened them up, at which point he squinted at them in confusion. _What the hell?_

**From: Eren**

**arm o hhoyl siht didu know u r naem has arm ini t thats fckuing verruückt**

**From: Eren**

**wiat fuck whats the engglisch word fr verrrückt**

**From: Eren**

**aw who geves a shit**

**From: Eren**

**armi n can u comme overrrrr**

**From: Eren**

**pleaseeeeee arm ur ym only frend**

**From: Eren**

**xcept  fr mi kasa but s he woud ylel at me**

**From: Eren**

**pleasepleaseplaspelaplspelapslep**

Blinking in the bright light of the screen, Armin quickly tapped out a message.

**To: Eren**

**What the hell are you going on about? Why are you typing like you don’t know how to hold a phone.**

Less than a minute later, his phone beeped again, telling him Eren had answered.

**From: Eren**

**armonnnn!!!!!!!! cna u com over**

**From: Eren**

**i may hvae done smethin g stupid**

Armin let out an angry huff. It was nearly 3am, and he was way too tired to deal with this.

**To: Eren**

**What the fuck did you do.**

**From: Eren**

**wowwwowww no neeeed to swear mr cursey mccrusy pants**

**From: Eren**

**but i maaaaaay have drunken some alkohol**

**From: Eren**

**may be**

**From: Eren**

**ok i dran k a shitttton of alkohol**

**From: Eren**

**incase u ddidnt notice im reaaaaaaly drunkk rn**

Armin stared at his screen for a good minute or so. He couldn’t believe what he was reading—Eren had gone and gotten himself drunk.

**To: Eren**

**I’m calling you right now.**

Eren picked up at the first ring. His words were slurred and his voice sounded slightly muffled, as if he was holding the phone the wrong way.

“Arrrrminnn!” he cried, and Armin sighed; he was definitely drunk. “Are you gonna come overrrrr?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Armin snapped, trying to keep his voice relatively quiet so he didn’t wake up his grandfather. “Why on earth did you think it would be a good idea to get drunk? What possessed you to do that?”

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone. Armin didn’t wait for Eren to say anything, and kept going. “Where are your parents? Are you alone?”

“My parents went out for the weekend,” Eren murmured, obviously trying to keep himself from sounding too drunk. “I… I don’t know, Armin. I don’t know.”

Armin groaned. “I’m coming over,” he said, climbing out of bed and turning on his light. “Just… stay where you are. Don’t move, don’t text anyone else, don’t call anyone else. Just stay perfectly still. Okay?”

“Mhmm.” The other end went dead, and Armin tossed his phone onto his bed. Taking a few deep breaths, he got dressed quickly.

In all honesty, he was scared. He knew what alcohol could do to someone; it had ruined his parents’ lives. But Eren wasn’t going to end up like them because he got drunk once. Armin tried to tell himself this as he quietly slipped out of his room, down the hall, and outside. The mid-autumn air was cold, biting at his face as he hurried across his lawn to Eren’s house. The lights were still on, and when he tried the door it was unlocked.

He stepped into the entryway and, after taking off his shoes, wandered around the house, checking every room until he found Eren. He was sitting on the floor in the computer room in his basement, crouched underneath a desk.

“Aw, how did you find meeeee?” Eren asked, trying to slide out from his hiding spot and falling flat on his face instead. “I tried to hide from you.”

“I followed the sound of complete and utter stupidity,” Armin said, reaching down to help Eren up. The brunet, however, could barely walk, and ended up leaning against Armin as he was pretty much dragged from the room and upstairs, where he was sat on the couch.

After getting Eren a glass of water and cleaning up the mess of bottles and cups he’d made in the kitchen, Armin sat down beside his friend, glaring at him.

“Why d’you look so angry?” Eren asked, pouting at Armin.

Armin sighed, running his hands over his face. “Because, Eren,” he said, a little more harshly than he’d intended. “I was just woken up by texts from you at three in the goddamn morning on a night where I, up until then, hadn’t had any nightmares only to find out that you’d gone and gotten your sorry ass _drunk_ because you’re an absolute fucking idiot.” He didn’t realize until after he’d said it that he’d mentioned the nightmares. Eren didn’t know about them, unless Mikasa had told him, which was as likely as it was unlikely. Still, Eren didn’t seem to notice, or care.  

The other boy looked at the ground, frowning slightly. “I’m sorry…” he muttered.

“You should be,” Armin said, though his tone was softer. “Now come on. It’s time for you to go to bed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I don't know how to write for someone who's drunk.  
> I didn't really specify it, but the movie Mikasa had started watching after Armin fell asleep was Spirited Away, just because.  
> This story can also be found at my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> And on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/5/Dead-Hearts


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armin doesn't even know what to think of the nightmares anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I was going to try and have quicker updates with this, but when school started up again after Christmas break, I got reeeeeaaaaally busy. Exams were coming up, and I had a bunch of culminatings to do, and to top it all off I got sick. I had my first exam on Friday, and idek how that went. I have three more on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but after that I have a four-day weekend, and then second semester starts. So HOPEFULLY once all this shite is done and over with, updates'll started coming out every 10-15 days. Hopefully.  
> Thanks to everyone who's commented and given kudos. You're all STARS.

_Could we try to reinvent?_

_Feed the head with common sense._

_Through the streets and avenues._

_Climbing up the walls with you,_

_Climbing up the walls with you,_

_Climbing up the walls with you._

_-Hearts like Ours,_ The Naked and Famous

 

* * *

 

“Should we wake him up?”

Armin and Mikasa sat on the floor of Eren’s bedroom, staring at the snoring lump under the blankets on Eren’s bed. Both had rather unamused expressions on their faces; Armin looked angry and grumpy, probably due to the fact that, after dealing with Eren’s drunkenness at 3am, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Mikasa’s face, on the other hand, practically screamed “are you fucking kidding me”.

“D’you think it’d tick him off?” Armin asked, balancing his chin on his knee.

Mikasa shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “I think we should do it.”

“Do you wanna do it or should I?”

“I think you should,” Mikasa said, leaning back against Eren’s dresser. “He woke you up at 3am, not me.”

Slowly, Armin got up, going over to Eren’s bed and crouching down beside it. He could only see a small tuft of brown hair sticking out from beneath the blankets.

“Hey, Eren,” he said, his voice relatively quiet as he leaned towards where he assumed Eren’s face to be. When there was no response, he gently poked at his friend, speaking louder this time. “Hey. Eren.”

Still, there was no response.

“Eren, I swear to god if you’re dead…” Armin muttered, snapping his fingers to try and wake the boy up. “Come on!”

“Time to rise and shine, drunkard!” Mikasa called from behind Armin; there was an annoyed groan from beneath the covers. When Armin turned to glance at the girl, she had a small smile on her face, as if she was at least a little pleased with herself.

“Come on, Eren,” Armin said, pulling back the blankets covering the boy. He froze as soon as he did, however, because Eren was lying there, his face buried in his pillow, wearing nothing but boxers. Armin felt his face heat up, and let out a rather embarrassing squeak, taking a few steps back. When he’d put Eren to bed the night before, he’d been fully clothed—and now, well.... he wasn’t.

Eren didn’t seem to notice Armin’s reaction, however, instead grumbling into his pillow about how cold it was now and how loud the two of them were talking and how much his head hurt.

Mikasa, however, did notice, and quietly moved over to Eren. “Come on, get up, and get dressed,” she said, yanking gently on his hair before turning to Armin. “Can you go get a glass of water and some ibuprofen?”

Armin silently thanked her for giving him a reason to get out of there, and quickly hurried from the room. He hated how flustered the whole situation had made him; he’d seen Eren shirtless before, even after he realized he had a crush on him, and it never ceased to make his face flare up. He’d never really liked the fact, but he’d lived with it and tried to act like nothing was wrong. But now, he was trying to get Eren _out_ of his mind—at least in the please-just-let-me-kiss-you-everywhere sense. Instead he was doing... this.

Groaning a bit in frustration, he got the glass of water and pills as slowly as he could. The whole thing just added to his already present frustration with Eren, and he felt like if things kept going like they were he would explode.

When he got back to Eren’s room, the other boy was, thankfully, clothed. He was lying with his face in Mikasa’s lap, and she was absentmindedly running her fingers through his hair. Armin carefully placed the water and medication on the bedside table before going and standing in a corner of the room, as far away from Eren as he could be. Mikasa gave him a look, as if she knew what he was doing and why.

He just needed some space. He needed to treat this like a flesh wound—he couldn’t poke and prod at it; he just had to let it heal, and look after it properly so it won’t scar. He could do that. He had to do that. Because once it was healed, everything would be so much less painful.

 

* * *

 

Later that day, the three of them sat around Eren’s house, doing random things to keep themselves occupied. Currently, Eren was watching Mikasa play Assassin’s Creed. She’d only played it a few times before, but was already better than Eren at it, which wasn’t really a big surprise; Mikasa was good at almost every video game out there, especially if it involved killing things.

Armin sat quietly on the couch as the two bickered about the best way to assassinate someone, hugging his knees to his chest; he wasn’t a big fan of violence, especially in light of his recent nightmares. Every time he heard the clang of swords he saw Titans, and whenever someone screamed out as they died he saw corpses littering the streets, painting the world red.

It was awful. After about half an hour he’d had enough and got up, walking to the kitchen. As he got himself a drink of water he noticed his hands shaking, and gripped the edge of the counter as tightly as he could, trying to get them to stop.

 _It’s not real,_ he told himself. _None of it is. The nightmares are just nightmares. The game’s just a game. None of it is real. Everything’s okay._

“Armin?”

A voice behind him made him yelp out in surprise, and he threw his hands over his mouth, taking deep breaths to calm himself and trying to blink away the tears in his eyes. He relaxed slightly when he realized it was only Eren, but still felt panic gripping in his chest. He could barely breathe, and had to move his hands from his mouth to make it easier.

“Are you okay?” Eren stepped closer to him, reaching out for him, but Armin moved away quickly.

“I’m fine,” he said, his words harsher than intended. He gripped his hands together and stared at his feet, willing himself to calm down.

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. It’s just a video game. They’re just nightmares. You’re not five anymore. Stop freaking out._

“You look really pale,” Eren said, his voice etched with concern. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

“Yes, I am,” Armin said quietly, retreating even further away from Eren. He’d hardly said a word to him all day. He was angry with him for getting drunk, and angry with himself for holding onto a stupid crush for so long. He was scared and panicking because a video game made him think of his nightmares, and he hated how pathetic that was. He’d spent his whole life scared; scared of his parents, scared of the bullies who tormented him daily, and now scared of his own mind.

Eren stared at him for a while, his expression worried and confused. After a while, he spoke again, “Armin, I know you’re mad at me...” he started, seeming to search for the right words. “And you have every right to be, but just know that I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what I was thinking last night; I was being stupid, like always. But something’s obviously bothering you right now, and even if it’s about last night I want to help.”

Armin didn’t say anything at first. “It’s not about last night,” he finally said. “It’s... about something different.” Eren opened his mouth to say something, but Armin cut him off, knowing what he was about to ask. “I’ll tell you about it, I swear. But first you have to promise you won’t be stupid and get drunk alone again.”

“Can I get drunk with other people?”

“ _Eren_.”

“I’m kidding,” Eren said, raising his hands. “I promise I won’t. Why are you so worried about it, though?”

Armin worried his bottom lip between his teeth. The previous night had been the first time he’d been around a drunk person in over ten years, the last being his parents. And even though Eren was nothing like Armin’s parents, in any way, he still felt a gut-wrenching fear that maybe Eren might end up like them.

Eren and Mikasa still didn’t know about Armin’s parents; his grandfather didn’t even know most of it. Armin had never wanted to talk about it, so he didn’t. He kept it all locked away inside, and the anguish and disappointment grew and grew. His parents had made him feel worthless; if he wasn’t even good enough for them, who _would_ he be good enough for? They made him scared of everything, and made him feel like, someday, everyone would turn and leave him.

Without even noticing, more tears had welled up in Armin’s eyes. He was staring at the counter in front of him, his hands curled into fists at his sides. He didn’t realize he hadn’t responded until Eren lightly poked him, causing him to jump slightly.

“I... I just have my reasons, Eren,” Armin said quickly. “I’ll tell you about those, too, eventually.”

“You know, Armin, you really can tell me anything,” Eren said, frowning a little. “It sucks seeing you so upset over so many things.”

Armin gave him a small, reassuring smile. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But it’s not because of you.... It’s because of me.”

Eren nodded quietly, and a few seconds of silence passed before he spoke up again. “Are you gonna tell Mikasa, too?” he asked. “About... that thing? The first one?”

“Yeah,” Armin said. “She already knows some.”

“Is it about the nightmares?” Eren asked. Armin furrowed his eyebrows at him, and Eren immediately froze, an embarrassed blush spreading across his face as he realized he wasn’t supposed to know that. “Uh... Um... Mikasa told me... And you mentioned them last night.” He gave Armin an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

Armin shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s, uh... Yeah, it’s about the nightmares. So I was gonna tell you anyways.”

Eren didn’t say anything; he just nodded and followed Armin back to the TV room, where Mikasa was still playing Assassin’s Creed, though the sound was lowered, as if she had been trying to listen to what Armin and Eren had been saying. When the two walked in she paused the game, turning to look at them.

“Are you okay, Armin?” she asked, and the boy nodded. She gave him one of her small, almost invisible, smiles. “Good. I was worried.”

“I’m fine,” Armin assured her. “It’s just... I... You know when, during the summer, I told you about those nightmares?” he asked, inwardly scowling over how he stumbled over his words. Mikasa nodded, the smile slipping away as she quickly glanced at Eren, as if trying to remind Armin that he was there.

Eren noticed this, quickly explaining the situation before Armin could. “I told him that you told me,” he said. Mikasa glared at him, but he just stared back, as if daring her to call him out on it. All three of them knew she wouldn’t.

Instead, she turned to Armin, a look of apology on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told him. I was just worried about you. You seemed really broken up about it.”

“It’s okay, Mikasa,” Armin said. “I don’t mind.”

Mikasa nodded slightly, but still carried a look of guilt. After a quiet pause, where none of them spoke, she glanced over at Armin. “Are they getting worse?” she asked, a tone of concern in her voice. He hadn’t mentioned his nightmares after the incident in the summer, and she hadn’t asked about them, but every day that he showed up at school sleep-deprived and panicked, he figured she knew. When days like that became more frequent, so did Mikasa’s questions of “how are you” and “are you doing okay”. She would tell him to worry less about school and to draw more, and was constantly bringing him books she had read that she thought he would like, as if hoping to take his mind off the nightmares.

“They are, yeah,” Armin said, thinking back to his most recent nightmare. He didn’t remember much of it, but he knew that there had been a Titan, about 15 metres tall, and it had been attacking other Titans; massacring them left and right. He remembers feeling absolutely hopeless at one point, thinking they were all going to die like everyone else had; like their friends and comrades. After that, though, everything just became one big blur, melting and mingling together until nothing made sense.

“What are they about?” Eren asked, breaking through Armin’s thoughts and pulling him back to reality.

“It’s... weird.” Armin said quietly, not really sure how else to describe it. “They all take place in the same world, and it’s overrun by these things called Titans. I’m not really sure what they are; nobody is. But they’re these giant creatures that eat people, for no reason.”

Slowly, he started to explain this world to them; about how the three walls had been built to protect humanity from the Titans, but how they had broken through the outer-most wall. He told them that all three of them lived in this world, and after their town was overrun by Titans they joined the military, which fought the huge monsters with technology called 3D-manuveur gear. He felt a small jump of nervousness and fear each time he thought of the dreams, but he kept talking; he wanted Mikasa and Eren to know about them. They both seemed very interested in what Armin was saying, and listened intently.

“And then the Titans broke through the second wall,” Armin said, thinking back to the timeline he had set up in his mind of the events leading up to his most recent nightmare. “There was this... huge Titan, bigger than all the other ones. It was bigger than the walls, even. It didn’t have any skin, and was just muscle and bone. It was the one that broke down the first wall, too; I remember that, I remember seeing it back then. I think... I think everyone called it the Colossal Titan.

“Eren, you were up on the wall when it showed up again and broke through the wall. And so were a bunch of other trainees. We were all rounded up and sent to fight, because there were Titans coming through into the city and there were civilians in danger. Mikasa, you were sent to the rear guard, and Eren and I went to the middle guard.”

Armin paused. Thinking back, he didn’t remember any of that from his dreams; there had never been any mention of the Colossal Titan. There had just been the dream where Eren died, and then the one with the crying girl, and then with Mikasa. He didn’t remember much of the nightmares after that; he always just awoke with a sense of fear and unbearable pain. But if those nightmares _had_ mentioned the Colossal Titan, and all the other stuff he had just said, why was he remembering it now?

Nonetheless, he continued explaining the dreams to Mikasa and Eren. He grew quiet when he got to the part about all those people dying, and felt sick when he remembered how their bodies looked, broken and lying in puddles of blood. And then there was Eren, saving his life and dying for it—and all Armin could think about was how useless he felt then, because his best friend was dead and there was nothing he had done to stop it.

Armin stopped mid-sentence, taking a deep breath and trying to calm himself down. Eren hadn’t actually died—he was sitting in front of him right now, living and breathing. But telling himself that was pointless; it never worked.

“Armin, you don’t have to say anything else.” Mikasa said softly, leaning forward and resting her hand on his shoulder. “That’s enough.”

“I should probably go home...” Armin said, slowly standing up. Both Mikasa and Eren seemed like they wanted to protest, and Eren was about to, but Mikasa shot him a look and he held back. Without another word, Armin hurried out of the room and towards the door; as he left, he could hear the two of them talking quietly behind him.

 

* * *

 

_Jean was there. Sasha and Mikasa were too._

_They all sat near Armin, listening as he explained their plan of attack—they were going to blind the seven Titans wandering around the storage room, and then have the most skilled trainees amongst them kill them from behind. Then they could get all the supplies they needed and finally retreat up the wall._

_Several other people were gathered around him, but he only saw them from the corner of his eye; their faces were blurred and unclear, as if shrouded in hazy fog. Still, they listened as he talked, and gave reassuring words when he voiced concern over making them shoulder the weight of everyone’s lives._

_When everyone was ready and the seven selected trainees had gone done to the storage room—Mikasa, Jean, and Sasha among them—Armin and the others climbed into the lift, rifles in hand. When they reached the room, he quickly glanced up at the rafters; he could faintly see the glint of someone’s swords, crossed in front of them on the beam. The Titans in the room slowly gathered around those in the lift, their jeering faces getting unnervingly close. Armin didn’t think he’d ever get used to them._

_Then someone beside him was telling to fire, and the air was filled with the sound of shots and the flare of guns. Smoke and sparks flew from the Titans’ eyes, and the seven other trainees ran down from the rafters, slicing at the monsters’ necks. Mikasa and Jean managed to kill their targets, but Sasha and one of the others weren’t as lucky. The two remaining Titans were quickly taken down, though, before anyone could get really hurt._

 

* * *

_There were Titans... eating another Titan._

_Armin and Mikasa watched in terror as the 15-metre Titan they’d seen earlier was slowly eaten alive, letting out horrific cries. Jean, as well as three others, appeared, and they began arguing over whether or not to try and save the Titan. It could easily prove to be useful for them, but should they really risk their lives for it?_

_But then another Titan—one Armin recognized all too well as the Abnormal that ate Thomas—showed up, and the strange Titan freed itself from the others, its arms tearing off in the process. It clamped its jaws around the Abnormal’s neck, biting until it was dead and disintegrating in its mouth, and then threw its corpse at another Titan._

_Then it let out one loud, roaring cry... and collapsed, face-first onto the ground._

_Everyone watched for a few seconds, before Jean turned to leave._

_“I guess it finally exhausted itself...” he said, adding a spiteful comment about how it couldn’t possibly have helped them._

_But nobody else had moved. Armin and Mikasa stared in shocked as they saw that, lying in the neck of the Titan amidst the steam rising from its body—was a human._

_A living human, who suddenly moved, pulling themselves from the rotting flesh—Eren._

_Mikasa was gone in seconds, jumping from the roof and flying to ground.  Armin called after her, but she simply ran to the Titan—to Eren._

_He was alive._

_Armin couldn’t believe what he was seeing._

_Down on the ground, Mikasa started crying, her arms wrapped around Eren as the dead Titan’s body turned to ash and steam around them._

 

* * *

_Back up on a rooftop, away from the danger of other Titans, Mikasa refused to let go of Eren. She cried into his shoulder, as Armin watched, shocked. Eren was alive. How was that possible? He’d seen him get eaten in front of him... His left arm and leg had been bitten off._

_But there he was, alive... and whole, his limbs having miraculously grown back. Tears springing to his eyes, Armin fell to his knees beside Eren, grabbing his left arm and twining their fingers together._

_“What happened?”_

 

* * *

 

Armin woke up with a gasp. He stared up at his ceiling, the first few pale rays of morning light painted on it. Tears stained his cheeks and, beside him, his fingers were curled slightly, as if he had actually tried to hold Eren’s hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16-year-olds and gross gushy feelings, aw (we're so dramatic).  
> This story can also be found at my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> And on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/6/Dead-Hearts


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rivers of blood and salty air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will I ever update when I say I will we'll probably never know  
> But that aside!!!!  
> darkness333 on deviantArt drew some AMAZING fanart inspired by Armin's dream at the beginning of Chapter 5:  
> http://darkness333.deviantart.com/art/Beating-Heart-433539292  
> so go check that out!!!!  
> And thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's given kudos and commented. You're all awesome.

_Your time will come if you wait for it, if you wait for it_

_It’s hard, believe me, I’ve tried_

_But I won’t wait much longer,_

_‘Cause these walls, they’re crashing down_

_And I won’t wait much longer,_

_‘Cause these walls, they’re crashing down_

_And I keep coming up short._

_-Amsterdam,_ Imagine Dragons

 

* * *

  

Armin drew to empty his mind. When the thoughts in his head threatened to drown him in words and pictures, he drew. He drew what he was thinking, because once it was done on paper, maybe it would leave him alone.

So, in the early morning, after waking up from his nightmares and being unable to sleep, he sat down at his desk, pulled out his sketchbook, and drew. He tried to draw the people he saw; the ones he didn’t know. But all that came out were messy sketches of generic faces, with a few distinguishing features here and there. A sprinkling of freckles across the cheeks of one, a long, hooked nose on another. A blank expression, a set of thin eyebrows. The only things that really set one drawing apart from another. Names lingered on the tip of his tongue and the point of his pencil, and his hand twitched as if trying to find the right strokes to write out the letters.

But he couldn’t find them. Sighing, he pushed the papers away and buried his face in his arms. He stayed like that for what felt like hours, until the alarm he’d set started going off and he had to get up to turn it off. He took the papers with him and roughly shoved them away into his sketchbook, tossing it onto his bed.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa and Eren seemed to know as soon as they saw Armin at school that he had had nightmares the night before. It was probably evident in the dark bags under his eyes, indicating that he’d had little sleep, and the way he nervously looked around the hallway as he walked, as if expecting something to jump out at him. There was always so much paranoia attached to the dreams it never failed to show through.

Eren was shuffling through his locker when Armin found the two, a somewhat frustrated look on his face as Mikasa talked; Armin couldn’t hear what she was saying, and when she saw him she grew quiet.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice soft. Even when they were kids, Mikasa had been able to tell when something was wrong. She could easily pick out people’s mannerisms and behaviours, and figure out what they were feeling from noticing changes in the way they acted. She could tell you were upset before you’d ever even said something.

Eren, who hadn’t noticed Armin until then, being too busy looking for something in his disaster-zone of a locker, looked up at his friend with a smile. Armin felt his heart skip a beat at Eren’s genuinely happy expression, a blush spreading across his face.

_Damn it._ He silently cursed at himself, quickly looking from Eren to Mikasa. “I’m... okay.” he muttered, hugging his books to his chest.

“Nightmares?” Eren asked, straightening and closing his locker, having found what he was looking for. The smile was gone from his face, replaced by a look of concern.

Armin nodded, shuffling his feet on the dirty hallway floor. There was no point trying to convince them he was fine; it wouldn’t do anything. Even though the most recent nightmares hadn’t been as awful as some of the others, the fact that both Jean and Sasha had been there really shook him up.

Having both Mikasa and Eren in his dreams made sense. They were his two best friends in the world, and he was closer to them than he was to anyone else. But Armin rarely talked to Jean; they got along fine, they just had different friends. When they first met, way back in kindergarten, Armin had tried to be friends with him. He remembered feeling some sort of familiarity whenever he saw Jean, and the other boy had enjoyed his company for while, until he found he was friends with Eren.

Back then, the two of them had absolutely hated each other. They could barely be in the same room together without fighting. To Jean, anyone associated with Eren had been no good. Even Mikasa had even fallen under that category, despite how he felt about her later on. Eventually Jean and Eren had gotten over their stupid rivalry, and while they still weren’t the best of friends they could at least hold a civil conversation. Still, the only times Armin ever talked to Jean was in the classes they shared, and it was only a few words at a time.

The fact that Sasha was in his dreams seemed a bit more reasonable, as they had been childhood friends. But nowadays Armin talked to her about as much as he talked to Jean, and they were in almost no classes together.

So why those two? Why not anyone else he knew?

Sighing, Armin rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. Mikasa and Eren were looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to Eren’s question.

“Yeah...” he said, shifting his books around in his arms. “They weren’t as bad as other ones, though. Just... I dunno. Emotional?”

Eren seemed a bit confused by his answer, but didn’t say anything; Mikasa just nodded.

“It’ll be okay,” she said, giving him a small smile before hoisting her bag further onto her shoulder. “We should get to class. The bell’s going to ring.” She turned to Eren. “Don’t wander around the halls and make yourself late today. Your mom will kill you if you get another detention.”

Eren scowled. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, heaving a sigh. “I’ll get to class on time. You two nerds have fun in math.”

“Because quadratics is so much fun.” Mikasa said, rolling her eyes at Eren as he started walking away.

“Yep!” Eren gave the two a wide grin, before turning and heading in the general direction of his first class. Armin smiled slightly, watching him as he rounded a corner and disappeared.

 

* * *

 

Armin was lying on his bed, staring at the textbook in front of him, opened to a page on the human nervous system. He’d been trying to read the same paragraph on the appearance and function of nerve cells for at least fifteen minutes now, but nothing was clicking. The clock on his nightstand read 9:02pm, and the lamp beside his bed was the only source of light illuminating the room, basking everything in a warm yellow glow. He had been trying to study for a science test since he had gotten home from school that afternoon, but he couldn’t focus. His thoughts kept wandering to the nightmares—which always seemed to be in the back of his mind lately—and the notes surrounding him were covered in doodles of Titans and faceless soldiers.

Heaving a sigh, Armin blew a strand of stray blond hair his face. He’d tied most of it back into a small tail, but his bangs were too short, and sections of it kept slipping out. Brushing the strands behind his ear, he grabbed one of the several pieces of paper around him, hoping that maybe writing it down would help him remember it. Instead, he found himself staring at a very detailed close-up of a Titan’s face, drawn on the back of the paper. It was surrounded by messy sketches of  3D-maneuver gear and military uniforms, placed onto generically faceless models.

The Titan’s face was long and angular, with small, sunken eyes and sharply pointed ears. It had shaggy brown hair which fell in front of its face, but its most prominent feature were the two rows of lipless teeth, one raised higher than the other, setting the monster’s face into a horrible grimace. It was the strange Titan Armin remembered seeing in his dreams—the one that went on a rampage and attacked others of its kind, killing them and smashing them into the ground. Then it had collapsed, and Eren had appeared from its neck, whole and breathing even though Armin had seen him eaten.

He just didn’t understand—did that mean that Eren had somehow turned into a Titan? Was that something that people in the world could do, that he just hadn’t realized?

But Mikasa had seemed so shocked to see Eren alive. She had held him in her arms, crying. Armin had never seen her cry, whether in a nightmare or not.

Sighing, he ran his hands over his face, shoving the paper away and burying it beneath a notebook. He was thinking of the dreams as if they were real—as if they had actually happened.

Something tapped against his window, causing Armin to jump, crinkling the papers around him. There was another tap almost immediately. Reaching over, Armin pulled up his blinds only to see Eren leaning out of his bedroom window, a small felt bag in one hand and a marble in the other. His arm was arched back, as if he was getting ready to throw the marble at Armin’s window.

Giving his friend a strange look, Armin scrambled over to the window, hoisting it open and removing the screen. He was met by a blast of late winter air. “What is it?”

As soon as Eren had realized that their bedroom windows faced each other, when Armin had first moved in with his grandfather, he’d insisted that they use that to their advantage. When they were forced to go home earlier than they’d like, they would open up their windows and talk. When they were nine, Eren had snuck a long board up to his room from his garage and had tried to use it to climb across the gap between their houses to Armin’s room. It hadn’t worked, however, and Eren had nearly ended up falling several feet to the ground.

When they got older, they stopped doing it as much, instead texting or talking over the phone. But sometimes, they’d just open their windows and lean out, talking until one of them had to go or it was late at night. They hadn’t done it in a while, and Armin couldn’t help but smile slightly as he leaned out into the crisp night air.

“I was just wondering if you were okay,” Eren said, setting the bag of marbles down. “And you weren’t answering my texts. Are you doing homework?”

“Studying, yeah,” Armin nodded, reaching over and grabbing his phone from where it was laying face-down on his nightstand. At least ten texts filled the screen, all from Eren. “Jesus, how many did you send?”

“You weren’t answering!” Eren defended. “Did you have your sound off or something?”

“I guess I did,” Armin said, putting his phone back down. “But I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

Eren eyed him suspiciously, as if he didn’t quite believe what Armin was saying. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You said you had a nightmare last night, yeah? Do you wanna talk about it?”

Armin thought for a moment. He wanted to tell Eren about what had happened, but how do you tell your best friend that he had died in your dreams, and had then miraculously emerged from a Titan’s dead body? When he’d been telling him about the nightmares for the first time, Armin had never actually told Eren that he’d died in them. Mikasa was the only one that knew.

“I... I guess I could.” Armin said, taking a deep breath. “I, um... Do you remember how I said that we were fighting to protect a town—I think it was called Trost—that had been overrun by Titans?”

Eren nodded, but didn’t say anything, letting Armin continue.

“Well, uh... Everyone in our squad was dying. And then you... um, your leg got bitten off.” Armin closed his eyes, reliving the scene that he’d seen in his dreams. Eren had been going to attack the Titan that ate their comrade—Thomas—and another Titan had appeared out of nowhere, biting his leg off like it was nothing. “Then a Titan appeared and... I think it was going to eat me. But then you saved me...” He paused. In his mind, he saw Eren crouched in the mouth of a Titan, reaching his hand to Armin... Then there was a snapping of teeth, and Eren was gone, swallowed whole. “You ended up dying for me. Or at least I thought you died...”

Glancing over at the other boy, Armin saw that Eren was watching him, and even though it was too dark to actually see Armin knew his dark green eyes were squinting slightly in concentration, trying to process what he’d just been told.

“What do you mean you thought I died?” he asked, his voice quiet and his tone gentle.

“You... came out of a Titan,” Armin said. “An Abnormal, I think it was called—a Titan that acts different. It went on a rampage, killing all these other Titans, and then collapsed... and you came out of its neck, and your leg had grown back. And you arm, because you’d lost your arm, too.”

Eren didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “That’s...” Armin could hear the concern etched into Eren’s voice when he finally spoke. “That’s pretty wild. Does your grandpa know about the nightmares? Maybe there’s some sort of... psychological thing going on with them.”

“He knows I sometimes have nightmares,” Armin said, shrugging slightly. “But he doesn’t know what they’re about... I think he assumes they’re about my parents.”

There was a moment of silence. Eren seemed to sit up straighter, but his expression was shrouded in shadows.

Armin felt the colour drain from his face.

He had never actually ever told Eren or Mikasa about his parents. He didn’t know what they thought the reason for him living with his grandfather was, but they never asked, so he never told him. At first it had been too painful; for years he had hated even the thought of telling others what his life had been  like in England, because that would be mean he’d have to relive it.

And even when time passed, and Armin grew to forget the details of his life before he moved to the US, he never felt comfortable with the idea of talking about it. He had always kept the memories stored away in a hidden corner of his mind, guarded under lock and key. But sometimes he wanted to tell Eren and Mikasa about it, because every now and then that dark memory-laden chest became too heavy to bear.

He never did, though. Instead he would sit alone in his room in the dark, and he would carefully pull out the memories, laying them out in front of him like delicate pieces of cloth that could tear at the slightest rough gesture. He would go over the ones he remembered, and sometimes he’d try to recall the ones he didn’t. But mostly, after he had sat and cried over the ones that had stuck with him after ten years, he’d gently pack them all up, and hope he never had to see them again.

Eren was completely quiet. A car drove by, its tires splashing through the slush of melting snow. After it had gone, and all that could be heard was the quiet drip of water falling from the eaves, Eren finally spoke.

“Armin.” His voice was full of worry, and even though Armin couldn’t see his face he couldn’t look at him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

The blond slowly nodded his head. “Yeah,” he said, running his hands over the damp windowsill in front of him. “I’m fine.”

There were a few more seconds of silence.

“I... I should probably go.” Armin said softly, leaning away from the window. “I still have studying and do...”

“Yeah, okay,” Eren said. “But if you ever need to talk about anything, you can always talk to me.”

Armin smiled slightly, picking the screen up off his bed and fixing it back over that window. “Thanks.” He mumbled. “I’ll... um... I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Eren nodded. “Bye.” Stepping back, he gave Armin one last look before closing his window. Armin watched as his light turned off and he walked away, not realizing his own window was open until he felt a crisp breeze blow in and ruffle the loose strands of hair framing his face.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn’t mention their conversation when he saw Armin again the next morning. He acted like nothing had happened, and Armin wasn’t sure if he liked that or not—on one hand, he was relieved, but on another, he was disappointed. He had spent hours the night before laying in his bed, thinking about he should do. He realized, eventually, that he should tell Eren and Mikasa.

Because, in all honesty, for the past several years there had been nothing keeping him from telling them but a fear of reliving his old life. And, eventually, all fears had to be conquered.

For the rest of the day, all throughout his classes, Armin thought of how he would tell them. It wasn’t a subject that you could casually bring up in a conversation, nor was it something Mikasa had seemed to figure out. It had been years since he had let himself act like his past bothered him while in front of other people; it was something he had long-kept hidden, even from his two best friends, under years of actual happiness.

Scowling slightly, Armin tapped his pen against his desk. There were about five minutes left of his last class of the day, and the teacher was reminding everyone to not forget to do the questions she had written on the board. There were a few shouted complaints, most of them joking, and Armin quickly scribbled the page and question numbers in the corner of his notebook before closing it and gathering all his things together.

Around him, people were getting up and going to talk to their friends. Someone ran over to Jean, who sat a desk over from Armin, plunking themselves down in the empty seat in front of him.

“Jean! Is it true you’re going to Belgium for a whole school year now?” They asked, leaning forward and resting their arms on the back of the chair.

“Yeah!” Jean grinned widely. “I decided to change it to ten months instead of just a semester.”

For the past several months, Jean would constantly talk about the exchange to Belgium he had signed up for. He would be leaving sometime over the summer, and while he had originally planned to only stay until late winter, it seemed like he wouldn’t be coming back until the following July now, at least.

Turning in his seat, Armin asked, “Do you know where you’re going yet?” It had been a while since he had last talked to Jean. They just never had much to say to each other, and in light of his recent nightmares, Armin wasn’t sure how a conversation with him would end. He tried not to think of the dreams when Jean looked over at him, because it was all that came to his mind when he saw the boy—explaining the plan to kill the Titans gathered in a storage room, the reassuring faces of Jean, Sasha, and Mikasa, the strange Abnormal.

“They said it’d probably be somewhere near Brussels.” Jean replied, not noticing how Armin’s face paled as images from his nightmare world flashed through his head. “I don’t know the exact town though.”

Armin nodded slowly. “It seems like it’ll be fun.” He said, trying to keep and voice steady and pushing the pictures from his thoughts. But they didn’t leave, and all he could see was a group of soldiers, dressed in their uniforms and gear. Most of them were shadowed, only their heights and builds setting them apart.

But Mikasa and Eren were there, standing side by side—Mikasa had a small smile on her face, and Eren was grinning widely. Sasha was there, too, leaning against someone a little shorter than her, laughing, and Jean was right beside her, turned towards someone with his mouth open, mid-sentence. Everyone was frozen like they were in a photograph, stuck in one moment of time.

Then they were all on the ground—a pile of bodies, limp and broken. Limbs missing. Faces torn apart. A river of blood leaked from the pool of red gathered underneath the corpses, and ran to Armin’s feet. Slowly, he took a step forward, walking through the blood to the bodies. Kneeling down beside one, he reached out his hand, his fingers lingering just above the person’s pale skin.

Suddenly there was the sound of a ringing bell, breaking through Armin’s mind and dispelling the gruesome image. He blinked, suddenly back in class; everyone else had already gotten up and were filing out the door. His hands shook as he grabbed his things off his desk, and he could barely breathe.

Mikasa was by his side in a second. She gently took hold of his free hand, helping him up and out of class. She walked quickly, not letting go of his hand until they were standing in a quiet, empty hallway. Armin was breathing in large gasps, and his knees shook violently. He kept looking at his feet, as if checking if they were clean of blood.

“Armin, what happened?” Mikasa asked, standing directly in front of him, trying to keep him focused on her. “Are you okay?”

Armin sputtered for something to say, but just shook his head instead.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Mikasa’s voice was calm and collected. “It’s okay, Armin, just breathe. Just breathe.”

He did as she said, trying to calm himself down. After a while his breathing slowed, enough so that he could talk.

“Jean was in my last nightmare.” He said, going over and sitting in front of a row of old, unused lockers. Mikasa sat beside him, taking both their things and setting them down on the ground. Armin continued, “Sasha was there, too. And then I started talking to Jean in class today, and I don’t know... All I could think about were the dreams. Then I just saw all these dead bodies. You and Eren were there, and Jean and Sasha, and tons of other people. Just... dead.”

“That’s awful,” Mikasa said quietly, lightly touching his arm. “So it had to do with the nightmares?”

Armin nodded.

“It sounds like they’re really getting out of hand,” She said. “if you’re having them while you’re awake now.”

“I don’t really think it was a nightmare, exactly,” Armin said. “The nightmares are usually like scenes, but this was just... different. I don’t know.”

Mikasa shrugged. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Armin said, nodding again. “I always end up okay.”

 

* * *

 

_He was going to miss his train. Dammit, this was unbelievable. He’d never missed the train before in his life._

_Hurrying into the station, Armin broke out into a run, making his way through crowds of people and around benches and potted plants._

_It was 1:59._

_Dammit, only one minute left. He wasn’t going to make it._

_Sprinting onto the platform, he was met with a gust of salty air and the cry of a seagull. The sound of waves lapping against the shore filled his ears, and all around him people were laughing and playing in the sand._

_“Dreams are weird aren’t they?”_

_Suddenly there was a girl beside him, wearing a soldier’s uniform and a familiar face._

_“One minute you’re running to catch a train, and the next you’re on a beach, talking to a stranger that you’re certain you actually know.” The girl smiled, looking around at the scene. “It’s pretty different from your usual nightmares, huh? When was the last time you had a regular old dream?”_

_Armin thought for a while—but he couldn’t remember. For the longest time it had just been nightmare after nightmare. It felt like he had never actually had a “regular” dream._

_“That’s what I thought.” The girl said, nodding._

_There were a few seconds of silence between them, before the girl bent down and picked up a stick at her feet. Crouching in the sand, she started to draw circles all around her, all in different sizes._

_“What do you know about reincarnation?” she asked, adding random numbers to the insides of the circles._

_Armin blinked. “Reincarnation? Like dying and being born into a different life?”_

_“Mhmm.” The girl nodded. “Something like that. I think it’s pretty cool, don’t you?”_

_“Well I don’t know much about it,” Armin said. “Is it real?”_

_“I think so,” the girl said, standing up and wiping her hands on the front of her white pants, leaving behind faint brown stains. “Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Armin.” Smiling warmly at him, she turned to walk away, before quickly looking back at him. “By the way, you should look up some stuff about reincarnation. I think you’ll find it really interesting.”_

_With that, she left, as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving Armin standing by himself, surrounded by circles and numbers and the smell of the sea._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we actually getting somewhere i think we are  
> Updates will, unfortunately, keep coming at the rate they are (which seems to be around 2 per month??), mostly because of school and the fact that I've started writing another fic (which is jeanmarco, and should be coming sometime soon, I hope).  
> This story can also be found at my Tumblr: http://thefangirlwholovedhistory.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> And on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crackling of wood and a dozen memories, all brought forward as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agggghhh it's been almost a month since this updated I'm so sorry. I got dragged into my other fic for a while, and I've been kind of alternating between the two for a while.  
> But I'm here now!! And things actually happen in this chapter!!!

_‘Cause we’re circles, we’re circles, you see_

_We go ‘round and ‘round the sun,_

_In and out like the sea._

_I’ll you circle ‘round you,_

_You will circle ‘round me._

_-Circles_ , Passenger

 

* * *

 

“ **Reincarnation** is the religious or philosophical concept that the  soul or spirit, after biological death, begins a new life in a new body that may be human, animal or spiritual depending on the moral quality of the previous life’s actions.”

Armin sat, staring at the screen of his laptop as he slowly read the Wikipedia article on reincarnation he’d opened up. Most of what was written in the introduction had to do with which religions believed in the concept of reincarnation, but the last paragraph was what caught his attention.

“In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation.[6] Contemporary films, books, and popular songs frequently mention reincarnation. In the last decades, academic researchers have begun to explore reincarnation and published reports of children's memories of earlier lives in peer-reviewed journals and books.”

Armin remembered sitting in Eren’s living room, his small, shaking, five-year-old hands gripping the legs of his pants as the image of being shoved down on an old cobblestone street flashed through his mind. He remembered the strange familiarity he felt when he first saw Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha, as if he had known them before but had just forgotten.

He could feel his heart pounding erratically in his chest now as he blinked rapidly and curled his fingers around the edge of his desk. It was such an absurd idea, but it was all that was running through his mind as he thought over all the times he had been gripped by familiarity upon seeing someone for the first time.

And the dreams. All those nightmares and horrible visions that wandered through his mind and made themselves at home.

But that didn’t make sense. Did those who were “reincarnated” remember their past lives through dreams?

Scrolling down the Contents list of the article, Armin glanced over the different section titles. Most of them had to do with different religions and philosophies, as well as history. However, right near the middle, he saw one titled “Reincarnation in the West”. Clicking on it, he quickly skimmed the paragraphs, finding it to mostly be about how many people in Europe and North America actually believed in reincarnation.

Pursing his lips slightly and letting out a little sigh, he clicked back to where a long page of website results was listed, all with the word “reincarnation” bolded and standing out from the rest. Scanning the titles, he clicked on one called “How Reincarnation Works”.

The article was about six pages long, and mostly dealt with reincarnation in religion. Armin slowly read each section, before stopping on the fifth page—Reincarnation in Science.

It mainly focused on the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who had studied children around the ages of two to five who had suffered from strange phobias or vivid and inexplicable memories.

Memories… Were the nightmares memories, buried so deeply in his mind that they didn’t surface until he was sleeping? But how could he have memories of a world that, as far as he knew, didn’t exist?

Moving his mouse to the search bar at the top of page, he erased the web address already written. For several seconds, Armin sat, watching the cursor flash, waiting for something to be written. Taking a deep breath, he quickly typed out the word “titans”, his finger hovering over the enter key. As soon as he pressed it, a page of results appeared, all with titles featuring “Titans”.

The very first one was a Wikipedia article, titled “Titan (mythology)”, with a small blurb of text near the bottom: “The  _ **Titans**_  were overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Olympians, in the Titanomachy ("War of the  _ **Titans**_ "). The Greeks may have borrowed this mytheme…” Furrowing his eyebrows slight, Armin clicked on it, quickly scanning the first paragraph.

“In Greek mythology, the  **Titans**  (Greek: Τιτάν— _Ti-tan_ ; plural: Τιτᾶνες— _Ti-tânes_ ) were a primeval race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky), that ruled during the legendary Golden Age. They were immortal giants of incredible strength and were also the first pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses.”

Immortal giants of incredible strength… The image of the rampaging Titan Eren had emerged from was brought to the forefront of Armin’s mind. But, despite that description, the Titans in his nightmares couldn’t possibly be the ones from Greek mythology.

Going back to the list of results, he scrolled through it, finding most of the other results to be about a football team called the Tennessee Titans.

Clicking on the search bar again, he typed in “3dmg”. All that came up, however, were results for some sort of tilt sensor. Next he tried “3d maneuver gear”, but there was nothing.

Armin worked his way through a list of things and places related to his nightmares, from the three Walls to the towns within them to the forest of giant trees.

Nothing.

Running his hands through his hair, Armin let out a loud sigh, before clicking his laptop shut.

 

* * *

 

“Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Eren looked over at Armin, tearing his attention from the TV, where he was scrolling through a list of shows on Netflix, trying to find something to watch.

“What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend. “That was a pretty random question, Armin.”

“I know.” Armin said, tapping his pencil against his sketchbook, where he had been absentmindedly doodling. “I just… I was just wondering.”

Eren was quiet for a few moments, watching him. “I… I don’t really know,” he said eventually, shrugging. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Thought about what?” Mikasa asked, suddenly walking into the room with a bowl of chips in her hands.

“Reincarnation,” Eren replied, lunging for the bowl and grabbing a handful of chips. Mikasa let him take the whole thing, before sitting down on the other couch, curling her legs underneath her.

“What about it?” she asked.

“I… wanted to know if he believed in it.” Armin said, lightly running his fingers along the corners of his sketchbook.

Mikasa tilted her head to the side slightly, pursing her lips and humming in consideration. “I don’t really believe in it, honestly,” she admitted. “It seems a bit ridiculous to me.”

Armin nodded. “I guess it is…” he muttered, looking down at his lap.

“What brought that up, anyways?” Mikasa inquired, leaning over to snatch the remote from Eren when he started to scroll through the same section of movies for the third time.

“Nothing,” Armin said, shaking his head. “I was just… wondering…”

Mikasa blinked at him a few times, as if wondering whether or not to press the subject more. After a few seconds, she seemed to decide not to, turning to face the TV instead.

Mikasa and Eren started bickering about what to watch, but Armin tuned them out, instead looking down at his sketchbook and straightening his pencil in his hand. He quietly began to shade in the drawing he had started—a back view of someone in the uniform of his nightmare world, a sword in each hand and a dark, waist-length cape billowing behind them. Beside the drawing, he’d started sketching out the design for the back of the cape; a pair of crossed wings, set atop an elongated pentagonal crest. In the bottom corner, right beneath the person’s feet, he had written, in his carefully neat handwriting, “The Wings of Freedom”.

 

* * *

 

There were only two months left of school, and, for Armin, they seemed to crawl by as slowly as possible. It was just an endless stream of final projects and exam preparations, all of which quickly took over his life. He had always cared more about his grades than most people, and even though he knew he was smart, he couldn’t help but get carried away with the stress of everything.

To top it all off, his nightmares seemed to be getting worse. They were becoming a nightly occurrence, and each time he woke with tears staining his cheeks and a scream forming on his lips.

But they were changing. It was almost like there had been a thick fog shrouding everything in pale uncertainty, but it was lifting now. The faces that, before, had been blurred were starting to clear. Names were taking form inside his mind—just letters at first, before growing as  he scribbled them out in the margins of his exam notes.

That seemed closer, but it still wasn’t right.

Was there a Connor? No, his name was something else; something similar, but different.

An Anna or an Anne. Or was she the Christina?

Nothing was right, but Armin could feel himself getting closer; learning more. A feeling of familiarity surged inside of him whenever he got close to figuring out a name, or when he found himself trying to draw out a face and discovering that he had sketched out something new—something that set this person apart from the rest, whether it be the shape of their head or their eyes or the length of their hair.

Armin wasn’t sure what had caused the change in his dreams, but the disappearing mystery surrounding everyone comforted him. 

But then summer came, and he remembered the pyre.

 

* * *

 

It happened in early July. Jean had decided to throw a party, mostly because he would be leaving for Belgium in just over a month, and wanted to get together with most of the people in their grade before that happened. Armin hadn’t wanted to go at first, but Eren had convinced him, assuring him that he would stay with him the whole time and they could leave whenever he wanted.

The party was held in the backyard of Jean’s family home. Their school was small, so there weren’t many people, but they still formed crowds in different parts of the yard, which Armin made a point to avoid. Jean’s father was barbecuing a bunch of different meats on a long grill, and there bowls of other snacks and drinks set up on several tables.  Armin was more than relieved to find out none of them were alcoholic; he didn’t know how well he’d handle being surrounded by a bunch of drunken teenagers.

He spent most of the party lingering around Mikasa and Eren, trying to acclimate himself to all the people around him. It had been years since he had been to such a large party; ever since he moved to the US, it had just been small neighbourhood get-togethers. Even though there weren’t many guests, standing in such a boisterous, crowded atmosphere, with loud music blasting from the house, made Armin want to run and hide somewhere, like he used to when he was small.

As the sun was starting to set, Mikasa dragged him off to a much quieter area of the backyard. Sitting him down on the grass with her, she started to pick at the dark green blades under her feet.

“Are you okay?” she asked, after a few moments of silence had passed between them.

Armin nodded. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m doing better than I thought I would, honestly. It’s all still a little… uncomfortable, but the fact that you and Eren are here helps.”

“And the no-alcohol thing, I’m guessing,” Mikasa added, running her fingers through the pile of shredded grass she had created.

“I… guess,” Armin said, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. How would she know alcohol made him so uncomfortable? He couldn’t remember ever mentioning it to her. “I… How…?”

“It doesn’t matter right now, Armin.” Mikasa said, shaking her slightly. “As long as you’re fine, right here, at this very moment, that’s all that matters.”

Armin didn’t say anything for a while, watching as Mikasa wiped her hands clean of the grass and dirt clinging to them. “Yeah…” he said eventually, fiddling with the hem of his shorts. “I’m fine.”

Mikasa nodded, standing and offering to help him do the same. “Good,” she said, gripping his hand tight and pulling him up onto his feet. “We’ll probably leave in an hour or so. That okay with you?”

“Yeah,” Armin said, nodding his head. Mikasa kept her hold on his hand for a few more seconds, before finally letting go, wandering back to where the majority of the guests were congregated. Armin followed after her, searching the crowd for Eren.

He found him by the fire pit, arguing with Jean over the best way to start a fire. Several large logs were piled into the pit, and the two were debating over whether paper, moss, or bark would be the best kindling.

“I think all three would work,” Armin said, walking over to them. “As long as they’re dry. That moss looks a little wet, though.”

Eren scowled, dropping the mound of moss he had been holding and wiping his dirt-covered hands on the sides of his pants. “We’ll use paper and bark then.” He muttered, snatching the crumpled newspaper from Jean and stuffing some of it under the logs.

Jean didn’t say anything; he just tossed the bark in with the paper and kneeled down, trying to produce some sort of flame with the barbecue lighter in his hands. Eren could only watch a few seconds of Jean’s attempts before he had to intervene.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he said, crouching down and grabbing at the lighter in Jean’s hands.

“You can’t use a lighter wrong, idiot,” Jean snapped, pushing Eren away. “You just press the button and stick it at whatever needs to be set on fire.”

“Well then, congratulations, because you’re the first person ever to use a lighter wrong,” Eren countered, smacking at Jean’s hand. “Give it to me, I’ll do it.”

“I’m not letting you anywhere near this lighter, Jaeger,” Jean said. “I don’t trust you.”

Eren glared at him. “Well then this fire’s never gonna get lit,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jean rolled his eyes, pointing the lighter at the brown-haired boy and clicking the trigger. A small flame sprouted from the tip, rather close to the side of Eren’s face.

“What the fuck, Jean!” Eren screeched, jumping back and rubbing at his cheek. “You could have burnt my face off!”

Jean snorted. “As if…” he muttered, sticking the lighter back into the pile of kindling and logs. This time, when he pressed the button, the paper actually managed to catch the flame, and within a minute it had spread to the wood. Standing, Jean pressed his hands to his hips, admiring his handiwork with a smug grin on his face.

Eren turned away from him, looking at Armin instead. “Where’s Mikasa?” he asked.

“Over there,” Armin said, gesturing to where the girl was standing, chatting idly with a group of students from their math class. “Why?”

“I don’t think I can stand another minute of being around that asshole,” Eren murmured, glowering over his shoulder at Jean. “And she’s our ride home.”

“She said we’re going to stay for another hour,” Armin explained. “Can you live ‘till then?”

Eren let out a loud sigh. “Probably not…” he said, running a hand over his face and into his hair. “There isn’t even any alcohol here.”

Armin gave him a disapproving look. “You don’t need any alcohol, Eren,” he said, his tone harsh. “You’re gonna ruin your life, thinking you need to drink all the time…”

Eren looked like he wanted to press the subject further, but held back. A few seconds later, he mumbled something that sounded like an apology, and went to sit down in one of the chairs that had been set up around the fire. Armin joined him, and the two sat in silence for a while, watching the orange flames dance in front of them.

In the back of his mind, someone was crying. Their cries were silent at first, almost inaudible, but the longer Armin stared at the fire, watching as the burning sparks flew up into the darkening sky, the louder they grew.

At first, Armin thought it was just someone crying behind him. But when he turned, all he found was a group of teenagers, laughing and joking with each other. Looking back at the fire, a bit of unease resting in the pit of his stomach, he saw that someone had moved to stand in front of him.  

They were wearing a uniform—one he knew all too well.

The crossed-wing design he’d drawn months ago was pressed onto the back of their jacket. The Wings of Freedom, he’d called it. One arm was resting across the base of their spine, while the other was pressed against their heart. They were saluting, to something or someone.

Armin didn’t know what, until he glanced at the fire and saw that it had been replaced by a tall pyre, a long plume of black smoke coiling from the burning wood into the sky. The people around him melted away, replaced by soldiers—the crying grew louder, and he realized that the sound was coming from someone crouching beside him, tears streaming down their face and onto the charred, stony ground.

The person standing in front of him turned, and Armin felt all the breath escape from his lungs. The uneasiness in him grew and turned into nausea, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

_Marco._

The name came to his mind slowly, and then struck all at once, like a voice had softly whispered the first syllable, dragging it out as long as it could, only to be overpowered by the loud, short cry of the second syllable.

The impossibility of the situation came to him in much the same way. There was no way that Marco was standing in front of him, whole and alive. He’d died—half his chest and face, torn off. Armin had never seen his body, but he’d heard. He’d known how the boy had died, and how Jean had found him, slumped against a crumbling wall in the ruined streets of Trost.

He’d been burned, in the way all soldiers were burned when they died—in a large communal pyre, serving as the resting place of a half dozen people. Like the ones standing in front of Armin now.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, his eyes not leaving Marco’s face.

“You’re dead.” His words echoed around him, reverberating through his mind and the smoke-filled air.

“We’re all dead, Armin,” Marco’s voice sounded hollow, as if his words were just pieces of dust someone had missed while cleaning. But his tone was sincere, and kind, in the way Armin remembered.

The blond boy looked around, and realized that all the people gathered were standing in a circle, surrounding the pyres.

“You’re all… dead?” He choked on the words, painful and difficult to spit out.

Marco didn’t say anything, but the look on his face revealed the truth.

Armin carefully took a step forward, reaching out a hand. He contemplated touching the boy in front of him, but held back. Instead, he quietly began to walk the inside of the circle, inspecting the faces of each person he passed. Names flew at him as he walked, slowly at first and then quicker, until all he could hear were names.

A girl with her eyes trained on the ground, her lips curled up in an unreadable expression—Ymir.

A boy with his arms curled around himself, trying hard not to cry—Connie.

Another with a hard face, staring at the pyre—Bertholdt.

When he came to a petite girl, staring straight ahead with a stony expression, he paused. She seemed so familiar, as if he had met her before, recently. But he knew he hadn’t—he’d never seen her face before.

He moved on before he could remember her name.

He found Sasha sitting on the ground, weeping. Seeing her there, grouped together with all these people he’d been told were dead, only made the nausea build in the pit of his stomach. How could she be dead? He’d seen her twenty minutes ago—she was at the party, standing around and laughing with her friends.

But there she was, choking on her tears as she rocked back and forth slowly. It sounded almost like she was repeating something to herself, but Armin couldn’t understand what.

Spinning around on his heel, he all but ran back to where Marco was standing, watching the flames dance in front of him.

“Why did you tell me all these people are dead?” he asked, wringing his hands together as he started at the freckled boy.

“They are, Armin,” Marco said, a look of sympathy flashing across his face. “They all died.”

Armin shook his head. “That’s not possible,” he said, his tone growing angrier and more desperate with each word. “I… I saw my friend. Sasha. She’s not dead. She was alive fifteen minutes ago—I saw her, talking and breathing! She’s not _dead_ now.”

“Sasha died of blood loss on an expedition outside the Walls,” Marco said, his voice just above a whisper. “Both her legs were bitten off by a Titan, one up to the hip. Eren found her.”

Armin’s hands had curled into fists. “Why… Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “Why would you tell me that? She’s not dead.”

“Armin, everyone here is _dead_ ,” Marco insisted, staring at the ground, as if he was overcome by guilt at having to do this. “You burned them. You saw their bodies. You… you left some of them to be eaten by Titans.”

There were tears in Armin’s eyes now. “I don’t understand…” he muttered, burying his face in his hands. He stood like that for what felt like hours, until he began to wonder why Marco hadn’t said anything and moved his hands away.

But instead of standing beside the other boy, he was kneeling on the ground, and Eren was crouched in front of him. Armin’s face was wet, and he could see the teardrops sitting on the tops of his hands. A group of people had gathered around him, as Eren grabbed his shoulders and shook them gently.

“Armin, what don’t you understand?” he was asking, concern etched into his voice. “Who’s not dead? Armin, what are you talking about?”

Armin leaned forward, resting his head in the crook between Eren’s neck and shoulder, and he didn’t move.

 

* * *

 

The car ride home was quiet. Both Mikasa and Eren had asked him several times what was wrong, but Armin refused to answer—he didn’t want to relive what had happened just yet.

Mikasa parked her car in front of Armin’s house, and all three of them got out. The two insisted on walking him up to his front door, even though he could manage it perfectly fine on his own. After they had all said goodbye, Mikasa and Eren lingered in the entryway; once Armin was upstairs in his room with the door shut, he heard their voices, talking quietly with his grandfather. It was too muffled for him to make anything out, however, so he didn’t try, instead falling onto his bed and burying his face in a pillow.

 

* * *

 

About half an hour later his grandfather slowly pushed open his bedroom door. Even though he was still wide awake, Armin pretended to be asleep, his hair fanning across the fabric of his pillow as he tried to make his breathing sound deep and even.

His grandfather lingered in the doorway for several seconds, before turning off the light Armin had left on and turning back into the hallway, the door closing behind him with a click.

 

* * *

 

Armin didn’t fall asleep until it was well past 3am. He spent most of that time sketching, trying to keep his mind from wandering to what he’d seen at the party. But no matter what he did, that was, inevitably, where his thoughts ended up.

And so that’s what he drew. He thought back to the faces he’d seen, and tried to recreate them with paper and graphite. Soon enough, he had half a dozen pages filled with messy sketches of scribbled faces and nearly illegible writing. He tried to work out body shapes and heights, starting with Sasha. But all he ended up with were sickening images of her, lying on a grassy hillside, oblivious to the pool of her own blood she was lying in.

He stopped drawing after that, and just sat, staring at the wall opposite him, covered in dozens of pictures of him, Eren, and Mikasa. And he just wondered… why?

Why?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found at my Tumblr: http://turkeywingsoffreedom.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> And on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something burns behind Armin's eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh, i'm so sorry about how long it took this chapter to come out... I kind of had to struggle through some writer's block for a little bit, but let's just hope it's all good now.  
> I hope you like this chapter, and thanks for all the support!!

_There’s an albatross around your neck,_

_All the things you’ve said and the things you’ve done._

_Can you carry it with no regrets?_

_Can you stand the person you’ve become?_

_-Weight of Living Part 1 (Albatross)_ , Bastille

 

* * *

 

Armin didn’t wake up until it was well past noon. His grandfather almost always woke him up before eleven, whether it was the weekend or the middle of summer, but that day he let him sleep.

It was almost one in the afternoon by the time he rolled out of bed. He had laid around for about an hour, content to watch the dust float around his room, illuminated by the sunlight streaming through his window, and just thinking about _nothing_. He ignored the images of bonfires and bloodied corpses that rose to his mind, and made a point of not looking at the scribbled drawings scattered across the floor of his room.

He just watched the dust.

There was only so long someone could stare at a bunch of floating dust particles, however, and Armin couldn’t lie in bed all day, no matter how much he wanted to.

So, quietly, he slipped out from beneath the covers and, grabbing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from his dresser, crept through the hallway and into the bathroom. He knew he couldn’t avoid talking to his grandfather for long, but he couldn’t stand the smell of smoke that seemed to cling to every inch of him, from his hair to his clothes to his skin.

He didn’t bother to wait for the water to heat up before getting in, letting the chill run over every part of him. He drenched his hair and scrubbed at his skin, wrinkling his nose at the still-present smell of burnt wood—he just wanted it gone.

After he had rubbed soap into every part of his body, he stood under the stream of water, now so hot that steam clouded around him. He could hear dishes clinking around downstairs; probably his grandfather emptying the dishwasher. He almost certainly knew that Armin was awake now, and the blond boy couldn’t hide in the shower for the entire afternoon, so he turned the water off and stepped out, quickly getting dressed.

He let his hair drip, barely even running a towel over it before opening the bathroom door and making his way downstairs, where his grandfather was buttering bread for a sandwich. He looked up when he heard Armin, smiling at him.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get up,” he said. “You had a late night, so I let you sleep.”

Armin nodded, sitting down on one of the stools set up at the island in the middle of their kitchen. He didn’t mention that, as far as his grandfather knew, he’d gone to sleep when he got home, around 11pm—not late for him at all. But he knew why he had actually let him sleep in, so he didn’t say anything.

“You took a shower,” his grandfather observed, and he nodded.

They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, both of them knowing that they were about to have a pretty heavy conversation, but neither of them wanting to initiate it—Armin because he just didn’t want to have it, and his grandfather because he didn’t know how to start it.

“Um, so, Armin,” his grandfather said, coughing slightly and staring into the warm mug of coffee sitting between his hands. “Mikasa and Eren told me about what happened at the party.”

“Okay,” Armin said, nodding. Neither of them were really looking at each other, and he glanced around the kitchen, his eyes flitting from the cupboards to the cup sitting by the sink to the knife block beside the toaster.

“They also told me about the nightmares you’ve been having,” his grandfather continued, finally lifting his gaze from his mug and looking at Armin.

The blond boy didn’t say anything; he just stared at his hands, picking at his nails.

“Armin, why didn’t you tell me?” his grandfather asked. His voice was worried, and Armin suddenly felt guilty.

“I’m sorry…” he muttered, gripping at the edge of the counter in front of him. “Did… Did they tell you what the nightmares are about?”

His grandfather shook his head. “No, they didn’t,” he said. “But, if you want to, will _you_ tell me?”

Armin bit his lip, glancing up at his grandfather. The older man’s face was etched with concern, his forehead creased and his brown eyes heavy and sad. He didn’t know how he would tell him what the nightmares were about; he didn’t think he wanted him to realize they were about something so… horrifying.

“It’s not really anything,” Armin lied, shrugging. “Just… generic nightmares.”

There was a pause. “Are… Are your parents in them?” his grandfather asked, his voice hesitant.

“No… not really,” Armin said, and that was the truth—he hadn’t ever seen his parents in the nightmares, and didn’t know if they were alive or dead in that “world”. Looking back down at his hands, he added, “Honestly, they’re not that bad.”

His grandfather sighed. “Armin, from the way Mikasa and Eren described it, it sounds like you had some sort of panic attack last night,” he said. “Was it from the nightmares, or something else?”

Armin took in a deep breath. “I… Yeah, it was because of the nightmares,” he admitted. There was no point lying about it, he figured.

“If you’re having panic attacks over them, then I think that they’re a lot worse than you’re telling me,” his grandfather said, joining his hands together in front of him. “Do you have them every night?”

“Most nights,” Armin said quietly. More often than not he didn’t remember the nightmares when he woke up—just fragments of conversations and pieces of scenery and faces—but he always knew what they were about, and that never changed.

His grandfather nodded. “Armin, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he started, quickly glancing between his hands and his grandson. “But if the nightmares are as bad as they seem to be, I honestly think you should see someone about them.”

Armin froze. “Like… Like a therapist?” he asked.

“Something like that,” his grandfather answered. “I know you probably don’t want to, but you could at least try and see if it helps—”

“I-I’ll do it,” Armin’s voice trembled as he spoke, cutting the older man off. He wasn’t sure what made him say that—the last thing he wanted to do was sit in some random office talking about his nightmares and feelings. But maybe he had found hope in his grandfather’s words; hope that getting help would actually change something, and stop the nightmares, or at least explain them. And he had grabbed onto that hope, and had decided to take his chances with it.

His grandfather seemed surprised by his answer, though he looked at least slightly pleased with it. “I… alright,” he said, nodding. “I’ll call the mental health centre in town later today. I’m sure we’ll be able to set up an appointment for you.”

“Okay,” Armin said, before sliding off the stool and walking back upstairs. Flopping down on his bed, he let out a loud sigh and buried his face in his hands. He lied like that for at least half an hour, not moving until he started to doze off. Pulling himself up into a sitting position, he grabbed the book that was resting on his nightstand and opened it up to the marked page, where he had last left off, and read for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

By the next day, his grandfather had scheduled a meeting for Armin with one of the local mental health clinic’s top psychiatrists, set for the following week. Eren and Mikasa didn’t react to the news with much surprise when he told them, and he figured it had to do with the fact that they were the ones who had first talked to his grandfather about the nightmares.

“I’m sure it will help,” Mikasa assured him, and he nodded. They were, at the moment, sitting on the Ackerman family’s back porch, under the shade of their gazebo and eating slices of watermelon.

“Do you know which psychiatrist you’re going to see?” Eren asked, tossing a rind into the bowl resting in the middle of the table.

Armin nodded. “I’m pretty sure her name’s… Ral. Yeah, Dr. Ral.”

“Oh, I know her,” Eren said. “She was born in Germany. My dad met her when she came to work at his hospital once; she’s been over to our house for dinner before.”

“What’s she like?” Armin asked, picking at the black seeds in a slice of watermelon.

“She’s really nice,” Eren said. “Very… psychiatrist-y.”

Mikasa raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s that even supposed to mean?” she asked, and Eren shrugged.

“Just that it’s pretty easy to see why she’s a psychiatrist,” he said. “She seems like she’d be good at it.”

Mikasa just shook her head at him, rolling her eyes. “Psychiatrist-y… God.”

Eren raised his hands, heaving a loud sigh. “English is my second language, come on!” he cried, and the statement was so ridiculous that Armin had to laugh; Mikasa looked like she wanted to, but held back.

“You moved here when you were one,” Mikasa said, giving him an incredulous look. “You pretty much learned English the same way Sasha and I did. So don’t pull that shit.”

Eren stuck his tongue out at her, and she shook her head again, almost like an annoyed mother.

 

* * *

 

Two days before his appointment was scheduled, Armin sat on his bed, scrolling through Facebook on his laptop. He was waiting for his grandfather to get back from the grocery store so he could take the car to the library and get some new books; he had already read all the ones he took out just over a week ago. Now he was just passing time, and had boredly opened Facebook, seeing as he had nothing else to do.

Sighing, he scrolled past status update after status update of how fun the people he was friends with were having. There were dozens of pictures of vacations in foreign places and visits with family; Armin almost wished he and his grandfather had gone to England for the summer—then maybe none of this would have happened. But they were planning to go during Christmas, and they had gone in July last year, so he was forced to spend two months in this little town.

Then Jean’s name showed up on his screen, and he paused. Not because of Jean—he’d seen plenty of posts and updates from him, mostly about how excited he was for his soon-to-be-arriving exchange to Belgium and how his preparations were going. It was the name beside his that made him stop.

 **Jean Kirschtein** _is now friends with_ **Marco Bodt**

There were two profile pictures accompanying the post; one was Jean’s—a shot someone had taken at his party of him sporting an oversized pair of sunglasses—and one was Marco Bodt’s—a professionally-taken shot of a boy with dark hair and a face full of freckles.

The same face he’d seen at the party, telling him that all his friends were dead.

Taking in a sharp breath, Armin quickly moved his mouse to Marco’s name and clicked. A profile popped up, with the same picture beside the boy’s name and a photo of a sprawling beach scene covering the top half of the screen. Choosing the tab labeled photos, the beach was replaced by a page of thumbnails, all of pictures featuring Marco.

Slowly, Armin started to scroll through the photos. He could only get to about the sixth or seventh one, however, before a terrible sense of uneasiness and nausea washed over him. Taking in a shaky breath, he quickly closed out of the tab; Marco’s smiling face disappeared, and Armin found himself staring at his desktop background.

Marco looked exactly like he did in the pictures as he had on the night of Jean’s party, when he’d suddenly appeared in front of him. Armin wasn’t even really sure what had happened that night—he hadn’t fallen asleep, so it wasn’t a nightmare. It was almost like some sort of hallucination.

“God, I really am going crazy…” he muttered to himself, running his hands over his face. He sat like that for several seconds, before leaning back and letting out a deep sigh. Glancing around his room, he looked for something to distract himself, his eyes landing on his sketchbook, perched on his nightstand. He got up and grabbed it, sitting on the edge of his bed and flipping it open to a random page.

It was a group of sketches, mostly of Mikasa and Eren. In one, Mikasa held a dark red scarf up to her face, her eyes closed in a blissful expression. In another, Eren looked down at his hands, which were covered in blood and bite-marks. The rest were just simple drawings—expression practice, uniform references, a set of swords and some 3DMG.

The following page was covered in a half-coloured picture of Jean and Sasha, standing on the branch of a giant pine tree. Their dark green cloaks blended in with the tree’s foliage, and Jean was looking off into the distance, at something far away, while Sasha stared at the ground beneath them. Both had worried expressions on their faces, and Sasha leaned heavily against the tree’s trunk, gripping at her swords.

He quickly flipped the page, and found Marco’s face looking back up at him. Armin had drawn him with a calm expression, like he was completely at peace, a small smile gracing his lips.

On the next page he was dead. The smile was gone from his face, replaced by a gruesome grimace. Half his face was gone, and jagged bones stuck out from his chest. Armin let out a sort of strangled cry, and turned the page so hard and so quickly he almost ripped it out.

But instead of finding a simple group of sketches or a blank page, he found Sasha’s body, spread out on a grassy, blood-soaked hillside. Both her legs were gone, and her hands were clinging weakly to the red grass beside her. She didn’t seem to be in pain, however, nor did she seem to register the giant shadow looming over her.

Armin threw the book across his room.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip his hair out and tear every drawing he’d ever made to pieces. He hated himself for drawing those awful things—how could he do that? Why couldn’t everything just stop?

But it didn’t—it couldn’t—stop. He didn’t think it ever would. All he could see and all he could think of was how Eren had found Sasha’s body, and how he’d just wordlessly carried her back to where everyone had gathered.

He could only think about how Connie had cried and how Jean had stood off to the side, completely expressionless.

And he just remembered a sort of numbness. Like he wanted to feel, and he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. His nerves were dead, and all that ran through his mind was, _God, not another one._

Then they’d burned her, as they burned all the bodies that made it back, and her bones charred and turned to ash, and everything that she was in that life, in that time, in that world… stopped existing.

Armin suddenly let out a choked sob, and he realized he was crying. His chest was tight and there was such a terrible _pain_ all over; he could hardly bare it. Without even really thinking about it, he got up and wandered out of his room, towards the stairs, practically tripping down them. His grandfather wasn’t home yet, and he found himself shuffling to the front door. Tears were still streaming down his face, but he didn’t think of what anyone in the neighbourhood might think of him, stumbling around outside like a wailing drunk. At that moment, he didn’t really care.

He wasn’t sure where he was going when he pushed the door open and walked out onto the front porch, but he wasn’t particularly surprised when he ended up in front of Eren’s house. His hand shook as he reached out and pressed the doorbell, hoping to god that it was Eren who answered the door.

It was. He took one look at Armin and grabbed hold of his arm, dragging him inside.

“Oh my god, Armin,” he said, looking the boy up and down, as if searching for wounds. “Are you okay? What the hell happened?”

“Marco Bodt.” That was all Armin said, sniffing slightly and rubbing at his eyes and cheeks with the backs of his hands.

Eren raised an eyebrow at him. “Who?” he asked, before shaking his head. “No, wait, never mind. I’ll ask later. Let’s just… let’s just sort you out for now, okay?”

Armin nodded, and Eren gently pulled him upstairs to the bathroom. He let the water run for a little while, until it turned warm, before wetting a cloth and pressing it against Armin’s face.

“Eren, I… I can do it by myself…” Armin muttered, trying to grab that cloth from the other boy’s hand.

“No, it’s, uh, it’s fine,” Eren said, pushing Armin’s hand down. “I-I got it.”

He continued to press the cloth into his face, occasionally wiping at it softly, until Armin’s breathing relaxed and he stopped shaking. When he was finally calmed down, Eren drew his hands away, sitting on the edge of the tub.

“So, what happened?” he asked, and Armin let out a loud sigh, running his hands over his now-damp face.

“Jean… he friended someone on Facebook named Marco Bodt,” he started, staring at the bath mat beneath his feet. “And… That’s the name of someone from my nightmares. He looked just like the person from that... that world too. Like the person in my dream had suddenly come to life. I kind of… freaked, and tried to take my mind off it by looking through my sketchbook.” He paused, and neither of them said anything; he avoided looking at Eren’s face, though he saw him shift slightly from the corner of his eye.

“And then, when I was looking through my sketchbook,” he continued. “I found a picture of Marco… And he was dead. He was like… bitten in half, or something. Then I turned the page and… and it was Sasha… and oh my god, Eren, she was _dead_. Her… her legs were gone, a-and she was covered in blood… And _I drew that_ , Eren. I drew my friend _dead_ and _mutilated_. Oh god…”

He was crying again, hanging his head and burying his face in his hands. He barely even noticed the light weight that draped itself around his shoulders, until Eren was pulling him towards him, one hand moving to Armin’s back and the other to his head. He didn’t say anything—he just stood there with him, gently rubbing circles into the space between Armin’s shoulder blades.

“I’m a terrible person…” the blond said quietly, his voice muffled by the fabric of Eren’s shirt.

Eren shook his head. “No, you’re not,” he murmured. “You’re not a terrible person.”

“You don’t understand, Eren,” Armin choked, gripping tightly to the other boy’s shoulders. He barely even registered how close he was to Eren, or how his fingers felt as they dragged themselves across his back—he was too distraught and scared, and all he really felt was the warmth of Eren’s arms.

“What don’t I understand?” Eren asked.

Armin sniffed, burying his face even deeper into Eren’s shoulder. “This is going to sound so crazy…” he muttered.

“I’ll believe you,” Eren said, pulling back slightly. Giving Armin an encouraging smile, he wiped at the tears staining his cheeks, before gently pulling him out of the bathroom and towards his bedroom. They sat down on his bed, with Armin curled up against the pillows, his chin resting heavily on his knees.

“I’ll believe anything you say,” Eren assured him. He reached out a hand, and was about to place it on top of Armin’s, before he seemed to doubt himself and pulled it back, stuffing it into the pocket of his hoodie.

Armin nodded, picking absently at the lint clinging to the old blanket covering Eren’s bed. He remembered how happy the brunet had been when he got it, proudly telling everyone that his grandmother had made it just for him. That had been over ten years ago, and now the blanket was just a thin, ratty scrap of falling-apart cotton. But Armin had never seen Eren’s bed without it; not since before he got it.

Sighing, he rolled a piece of the light blue lint between his fingers. Eren was looking at him expectantly, his knee bouncing energetically. It was something of a nervous tick of his; he hardly ever noticed when he started doing it. Armin had grown so used to it he barely noticed, either.

“Well, um… You know, at the party last week…” Armin started, his gaze flicking from Eren to everything else in the room, never staying on one thing for too long. “I… I saw Marco.”

Eren raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean the guy you said was from your nightmares?” he asked. “Well, that’s not _too_ weird, is it? Mikasa, Sasha, and I are in your nightmares, aren’t we?”

Armin shook his head. “It’s not like that,” he said. “I didn’t… actually see him. Not… physically. It was almost like… like some sort of daydream, but more realistic. It happened while we were sitting in front of the bonfire. And it just, it turned into a funeral pyre, and there were so many people standing around it, dressed in military uniforms. They all looked so sad, Eren… And Marco was in front of me and he told me that they were all dead. All of them…” He paused, taking in a deep breath and running his hands over his face and into his hair. Eren was quiet, watching him with concern and worry etched all over his face.

“And I walked, and looked at them,” Armin continued, squeezing his eyes shut. He could still see the stricken looks they carried, like they were reliving every single nightmare they’d ever had. “When I looked at them I remembered their names. I knew them, Eren. I knew them all, and so did you, and so did Mikasa. There was Ymir, and Connie, and Bertholdt… But they were all dead. Oh, god… Sasha was there sobbing, and I went back to Marco a-and he told me how she died.” He took in a sharp breath, shaking his head vigorously as if it might get rid of the memories. “H-He said… that she lost both her legs, and… and that you found her.” He stopped. Staring down at his hands, he tightly curled them into fists by his feet, letting out a deep sigh.

“Is that all?” Eren asked quietly. His eyes were focused on Armin, darting from his face to his hands to his arms.

Armin shrugged. “I… I just kind of freaked out when I saw that Jean was friends with someone named Marco Bodt,” he said, still staring at his hands, trying to avoid looking at Eren. “I don’t really get it… I mean I’ve never met him before or anything. He was just someone from my dreams. I drew him dead, with half his face torn off! And now he suddenly appears, and he’s _real_? With everyone else in my dreams, I knew them before. And I didn’t with this guy. What about all the others I dream about? Are they real people, too? Am I having nightmares about real peopleI don’t know _dying_?”

His voice was rising into a slight panic, and a frantic look kept flashing across his face. Eren seemed to realize, as he reached out a hand, placing it gently on top of one of Armin’s knees.

“I’m going to get Mikasa,” he said. “Ok? Just… wait here until I get back. She’s way better at this than I am, ‘cause I’m kind of freaking out now, too. I’ll be quick.”

With that, he got up and hurried out the door; Armin could hear his footsteps as he bounded down the hallway and down the stairs, then out the door. Leaning towards the window, he peeked out and saw the brown-haired boy jogging across the street to Mikasa’s house, nothing on his feet but a pair of old socks.

Sighing, Armin fell back onto the bed, closing his eyes and grabbing one of Eren’s pillows, pressing it into his face.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story can also be found at my Tumblr: http://turkeywingsoffreedom.tumblr.com/tagged/libbyisactuallywriting  
> And on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9770639/1/Dead-Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> While this isn't my first fanfiction ever, it's my first fanfiction on AO3, and for this fandom. So I hope it's not horrible or anything. :)  
> Also, I normally have an outline for the entire story written before I start it, but with this one I hit writer's block around chapter 15, so I expect there to be a bit of a pause around there when the time comes (unless I figure something out).  
> I'm so sorry the first chapter is this long though. I never meant for it to be over 3000 words.  
> But thanks for reading, anyways!


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